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THE    LIBRARIES 


Bequest  of 

Frederic  Bancroft 

1860-1945 


KEV    THOMAS  H.   PEARNE. 

Ai  the  age  of  30  years  | 


SIXTY-ONE  YEARS  OF  ITINERANT 

CHRISTIAN  LIFE 

IN  CHURCH  AND  STATE 


THOMAS  HALL  PEARNE,  D.  D. 


AUTHOR   OF 


The  World  Harvest/'    •' The  Two  Churches,"    "  The  Twentieth 

Century,"  "Cincinnati  Sunday  Saloon,"  "Railroads 

and  Civilization." 


%.& 


m 


printed  for  the  Hutbor 

CINCINNATI:  CURTS  &  JENNINGS 

NEW    YORK:      EATON     &    MAINS 

1898 


DEDICATION. 


To  my  dear  daughter, 

VIRGINIA  WyOMING  PEARNE, 

Cbis  Volume 

Is  affectionately  dedicated. 

Thomas  Hall  Pearne. 


PREFACE 


HTHIS  volume  is  due  to  the  partiality  of  my 
*  brethren  of  the  Cincinnati  Conference,  who, 
by  a  resolution  passed  at  their  session  in  1896, 
requested  that  it  be  prepared.  It  was  thought  by 
them  that  a  record  of  my  experiences  and  obser- 
vations, extending  through  a  ministry  of  over  sixty 
years,  would  be  of  interest  and  value  to  the  Church, 
and  contain  suggestions  that  might  lead  its  readers 
to  a  more  active  and  better  spiritual  life.  In  ac- 
cordance with  this  resolution  the  work  was  under- 
taken, and  the  present  book  is  the  result. 

The  author  has  not  written  these  pages  in  the 
form  of  a  diary,  nor  has  he  given  a  detailed  nar- 
rative of  his  life.  He  has  attempted  rather  to 
present  the  more  striking  events  with  which  he 
has  been  connected,  and  to  depict  some  of  the 
great  incidents  of  our  ecclesiastical  and  civil  his- 
tory which  came  under  his  notice,  together  with 
occasional  sketches  of  the  prominent  actors  with 
whom  he  has  been  more  or  less  associated  from 
his  younger  years.  He  has  endeavored  to  be  a 
faithful  chronicler,  and  to  describe  persons  and 
scenes  as  they  were,  or,  at  least,  as  they  appeared 

5 


6  PREFACE. 

to  him.  Most  of  what  is  given  has  been  written 
from  recollection.  The  events  of  my  earlier  life 
still  seem  fresh  and  vivid.  If  I  have  lost  some- 
what of  the  buoyant  spirit  of  childhood,  I  trust 
that  the  high  hopes  then  conceived  have  in  a 
measure  been  fulfilled  through  my  ministry,  and 
that  I  have  not  labored  in  vain  in  the  Lord. 

For  whatever  success  I  may  have  had  in 
preaching  the  Word  and  in  cultivating  the  field 
given  me  by  the  great  Head  of  the  Church,  to 
him  be  the  glory.  T.  H.  P. 

Hillsboro,  August,  1898. 


INTRODUCTION 


THE  influence  of  Methodism  upon  the  marvelous 
growth  of  what  was  once  called  the  Great  West, 
upon  its  educational  and  its  religious  life,  will  never, 
probably,  be  accurately  measured  nor  fully  acknowl- 
edged. A  distinguished  jurist,  judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court  in  one  of  the  Western  States — a  professed 
Deist — is  reported  to  have  said,  on  one  occasion:  "But 
for  the  Methodist  Church  and  the  Methodist  min- 
istry, this  country  would  have  sunk  into  barbarism." 
This  may  be  an  extravagant  statement ;  but  the  early 
Methodist  itinerants  were,  undoubtedly,  a  remarkable 
class  of  men.  It  is  said  occasionally,  in  a  half  apolo- 
getic tone,  that  these  hardy  and  adventurous  pio- 
neer preachers  were  men  for  their  times ;  and  so  indeed 
they  were,  and  nobly  did  they  fulfill  their  mission. 
Some  of  these  sturdy  heroes  were  the  vanguard  of 
our  early  frontiersmen,  who,  advancing  westward 
from  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  over  the  Alleghanies  and 
across  the  Mississippi  Valley,  swept  onward  over  the 
Rockies  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  thus  spanning  the  conti- 
nent with  a  splendid  type  of  Christian  civilization. 

It  is  certainly  within  bounds  to  say  that  Meth- 
odism has  been  second  to  no  other  human  agency  in 
promoting  the  remarkable  growth  of  the  West;  and  if 
so,  the  publication  of  the  many  biographies  of  the 
pioneers  of  this  pioneer  Church,  which  have  been  is- 
sued in  recent  years,  is  amply  vindicated;  for  these 
books  are  an  important  part  of  the  history  of  the 
country. 

7 


S  INTRODUCTION. 

Many  notable  and  most  valuable  contributions  have 
been  made  already  to  this  biographical  literature  of 
the  Church,  including  sketches  of  such  recognized 
leaders  as  Francis  Asbury,  Jesse  Lee,  William  Wat- 
ters,  Henry  Smith,  Elijah  Redding,  James  B.  Finley, 
David  and  Jacob  Young,  James  Quinn,  Peter  Cart- 
wright,  Thomas  A.  Morris,  Granville  Moody,  William 
I.  Fee,  and  many  others.  The  writer  of  this  auto- 
biography ranks  easily  with  these  and  other  distin- 
guished men  of  the  denomination,  and  it  is  eminently 
proper  that  a  life  of  such  varied  and  protracted  useful- 
ness should  find  a  permanent  place  in  the  history  of 
the  Church.  It  may  be  said  truthfully,  I  believe,  that 
no  man  in  the  ministry  of  American  Methodism  has 
sustained  an  effective  relation  in  the  itinerant  ranks 
for  so  many  years,  consecutively,  as  are  embraced  in 
this  volume,  and  it  will  be  the  earnest  prayer,  I  am 
sure,  of  all  who  read  these  thrilling  pages,  that  the 
author  may  long  be  spared  to  the  Church  he  has  so 
nobly  served. 

The  sixty-one  years  of  active  and  conspicuous 
service  which  Dr.  Pearne  has  given  to  the  Church 
already,  covers  a  most  interesting  period  in  the  history 
of  the  world — the  most  remarkable  period,  perhaps, 
in  the  nineteen  centuries  of  the  Christian  era;  for  in 
that  time,  and  on  this  continent,  and  in  this  Republic, 
humanity  has  reached  its  high-water  mark  of  material, 
intellectual,  and  political  thrift.  The  fact  that  this 
splendid  Western  civilization  is  the  highest  now  exist- 
ing, is  due  largely  to  the  labors  of  the  pioneer  preach- 
ers in  the  formative  and  history-making  epoch  in 
which  they  lived.  Certainly  these  born  leaders  of  men 
are  worthy  to  be  held  in  affectionate  remembrance  by 
those  of  us  who  have  entered  into  their  labors. 


INTRODUCTION.  g 

And  yet,  worthy  as  is  this  volume  of  a  place  in 
every  Methodist  library,  it  is  not  probable  that  its 
preparation  would  have  been  undertaken  but  for  the 
action  of  the  Cincinnati  Conference,  in  1896,  as 
follows : 

"Whereas,  Dr.  Thomas  H.  Pearne,  an  honored  and  able 
minister  of  this  Conference,  having  had  large  experience  in 
public  and  journalistic  service,  has  in  many  ways  accom- 
plished great  good  in  both  Church  and  State;  therefore,  be  it 
"Resolved,  That  we  express  to  him  our  high  regard,  with 
the  hope  that  he  will  be  able  to  place  his  Reminiscences  in 
printed  form.  If  it  be  feasible,  we  suggest  and  request  that 
he  prepare  such  a  volume,  which  we  believe  will  be  of  great 
interest  and  value. 
"C.  W.  Barnes,  J.  A.  Story,  C.  L.  Conger, 

"D.  LEE  Auetman,     "M.  M.  Kugler,      John  Pearson, 
"F.  G.  Mitchell,       G.  W.  Dubois,        Wm.  Runyan." 

The  reader  of  this  volume  will  note  the  division 
of  the  author's  life  into  five  periods,  each  marked  by 
distinctive  conditions  and  duties.  The  first  fourteen 
years  of  his  ministry — from  1837  to  185 1 — were  spent 
in  Central  New  York  and  Northern  Pennsylvania. 
Here  all  the  characteristics  of  the  Church  and  of  soci- 
ety were  marked  by  more  or  less  culture  and  ma- 
turity, even  at  that  early  time,  rather  than  by  the 
rudeness  and  hardships  of  pioneer  life;  and  yet  it  was, 
after  all,  the  transitional  period  between  the  old  and 
the  new — the  evolution  from  the  earlier  and  simplor 
forms  of  life  to  the  higher  civilization  of  the  present 
times.  The  common-school  system  was  then  in  its 
infancy;  the  Sunday-schools  were  crude  and  com- 
paratively inefficient;  railways  were  unknown;  steam- 
boats were  in  their  earlier  stage,  limited  to  river  trans- 
portation ;  there  were  then  no  ocean  steamers  ;  the  daily 
newspaper  was  a  luxury,  only  to  be  enjoyed  in  the 


j  o  INTR  OD  I  'CTIOJV. 

largest  cities;  and  telegraphic  news  from  all  parts  of  the 
world,  printed  daily,  was  not  even  dreamed  of  as  a 
possibility.  Methodism,  then,  was  of  the  primitive 
type.  The  class-meetings,  band-meetings,  love-feasts, 
were  given  great  prominence,  and  strangers  were  ad- 
mitted to  them  cautiously,  and  not  more  than  twice 
or  thrice.  Instrumental  music  was  very  generally  ex- 
cluded from  the  services  of  the  Church.  Its  intro- 
duction was  stoutly  opposed  as  an  innovation,  for- 
bidden alike  by  precedent,  prejudice,  and  the  claims 
of  spiritual  worship.  It  would  be  a  great  mistake, 
therefore,  to  suppose  that  the  life  of  an  itinerant  Meth- 
odist preacher,  even  in  that  favored  region,  would  be 
destitute  of  hardship,  romance,  and  such  thrilling  in- 
cidents as  constitute  the  web  of  all  human  history. 
Of  Dr.  Pearne's  marked  success  as  a  preacher  and 
pastor  in  this  initial  period  there  is  abundant  evidence, 
apart  from  that  furnished,  incidentally,  by  his  auto- 
biography. 

The  second  period — 185 1  to  1865 — was  that  spent 
in  Oregon.  No  part  of  Dr.  Pearne's  ministry,  it  is 
safe  to  say,  has  been  more  influential  in  molding  opin- 
ions and  shaping  results  than  the  fourteen  years 
passed  in  Oregon.  He  was  selected  for  that  work  by 
one  of  the  wisest  men  on  the  Episcopal  Bench,  and 
the  outcome  fully  vindicated  the  wisdom  of  .the  choice. 
The  country  was  new,  and  the  foundations  of  civil, 
educational,  and  religious  institutions  were  being  laid. 
A  man  of  force,  courage,  and  ability  was  needed 
to  take  leadership  in  the  plastic  stage  of  our  Church 
life  in  that  important  and  strategic  field.  Of  Dr. 
Fearne's  work  in  Oregon,  as  a  presiding  elder  and  an 
editor,  this  is  not  the  place  to  speak  at  length.  The 
following  pages  will  reveal  how  great  was  his  oppor- 


INTRODUCTION,  1 1 

tunity,  and  how  fully  he  met  the  demands  of  the  situ- 
ation. That  country  was  receiving,  at  that  time,  large 
accessions  to  its  population  from  all  parts  of  the  Re- 
public; these  accessions  were  swelled,  no  doubt,  by 
the  contiguity  of  the  recently-opened  gold-mines  of 
California.  Dr.  Pearne's  position  naturally  brought 
him  into  close  relations  with  the  pioneer  leaders  of  that 
section,  in  religious,  civil,  and  military  life,  and  so 
impressed  were  these  leaders  in  civil  affairs  with  the 
Doctor's  statesmanlike  qualities  that  he  was  once 
importuned  to  stand  for  an  election  to  the  United 
States  Senate.  Dr.  Pearne  did  not  encourage  this 
movement,  because,  as  he  felt,  he  could  not  relinquish 
the  work  committed  to  his  hands  by  the  Church. 

The  third  term  included  five  years  spent  in  the 
South,  in  the  ''Reconstruction  Days"  following  the 
Civil  War.  His  work  was  in  East  Tennessee,  and  in 
connection  with  the  first  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  organized  in  Tennessee  after  the 
overthrow  of  slavery,  and  the  rehabilitation  of  that 
State  with  sovereignty.  The  war,  indeed,  was  over, 
and  armed  rebellion  was  subdued ;  but  the  fierce  pas- 
sions aroused  by  the  long  and  bloody  struggle,  and 
the  bitter  prejudices  excited  by  that  unhappy,  fra- 
ternal strife,  still  existed.  Dr.  Pearne's  position  here 
was  a  most  delicate,  difficult,  and  even  dangerous  one, 
as  will  be  noted  by  the  reader  in  the  thrilling  narrative 
of  that  period. 

From  this  important  work  Dr.  Pearne  was  called 
by  the  Administration  at  Washington  to  serve  his 
country  as  United  States  consul  in  the  British  West 
Indies.  Of  course,  the  duties  of  this  position  were 
secular  rather  than  sacred;  and  yet  amid  the  engross- 
ing duties  of  his  official  position  in  Jamaica,  the  Doctor 


1 2  INTROD I  CTION. 

found  time  to  respond  to  the  frequent  calls  made  upon 
him  to  occupy  the  various  pulpits  of  the  city,  and 
also  of  the  island  of  Jamaica,  in  all  of  which  he 
preached  frequently,  except  in  those  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  and  the  Church  of  England. 

The  last  of  the  five  periods  into  which  the  Doctor 
has  divided  his  life — from  1874  to  the  present  time — 
has  been  spent  in  the  regular  work  of  the  itinerancy 
in  Ohio,  as  a  member  of  the  Cincinnati  Conference. 
Entering  this  body  at  an  age  when  ministers  are  gen- 
erally supposed  to  have  crossed  the  "dead  line,"  Dr. 
Pearne  took  at  once  the  position  in  the  forefront  which 
he  holds  now,  and  is  likely  to  hold  until  his  voluntary 
retirement  from  the  effective  ranks.  Whether  as 
pastor  or  presiding  elder,  his  rare  ability  as  a 
preacher,  his  genial  personality,  his  fidelity  to  every 
trust,  and  his  faithful  discharge  of  every  duty,  have 
made  him  one  of  the  most  acceptable  and  useful  min- 
isters of  his  day. 

The  Church  will  be  grateful  to  Dr.  Pearne  for  this 
valuable  contribution  to  its  pioneer  literature,  and  it 
will  be  read,  I  have  no  doubt,  with  increasing  interest 
as  the  years  go  by,  and  greater  distance  lends  still 
greater  enchantment  to  the  heroic  days  of  American 
Methodism. 

JOHN  F.  MARLAY. 
Springfield,  Ohio,  August,  1898. 


CONTENTS 


fnrst  period  -Beginning  Xtinerant  Life. 

CHAPTER  I. 

Ancestry — Birth— Conversion  of  Parents — Early  Childhood — 
Removal  to  New  York  Mills,  Oneida  County — Happy 
Home-life — Father  a  Local  Preacher,  then  an  Itinerant — ■ 
Old-time  Veterans — Conversion,  and  Call  to  Preach— 
School-life — Serious  mistake, Page  21 

CHAPTER  II. 

Begin  preaching  as  a  Supply — Truxton  Circuit — First  Appoint- 
ment—  First  Sunday  —  Changed  to  Madison  Station — 
Marriage — Amusing  Incident — Appointed  to  Marcellus — 
Funeral — James  Jay,  an  Old  Wesleyan  Preacher — Skane- 
ateles— Visit  there  in  1864 — Auburn — Returned  to  Madi- 
son— Revivals  and  Church  Improvements, 31 

CHAPTER  III. 
General  Conference  of  1844 — Personal  Recollections,   ...  41 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Binghamton — Eel-pot  Church  —  Wyoming — Great  Revival — 
Flisha  Harris  my  Helper — Conversion  of  Payne  Pette- 
bone — Letter  from  Rev.  R.  W.  Van  Schoick, 53 

CHAPTER  V. 

Francis  Asbury,  Personal  Reminiscences  —  Wilkesbarre  — 
Bishops    Soule    and    Waugh,  who  Ordained  me — Bishop 

Roberts, 63 

13 


'4 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


Associations  and  Experiences— Fathers  of  the  Oneida  Con- 
ference -  Marmaduke  Pearce  —  John  Dempster— Joseph 
Castle— George  Harmon— The  Paddock  Brothers— David 
A.  Shepard  —  The  African  Missionary— W.  W.  Ninde— 
Elias  Bowen Page  77 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Jesse  T.  Peck,— George  Peck— George  Gary, 91 


Second  period    Life  in  Oregon. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Transfer  to  Oregon — Conditions  inducing — Voyage — Steamer 
Associates— Delay  in  Aspinwall — Passage  up  the  Chagres 
River — Incidents — San  Francisco  Delay — Port  Oxford — 
Indians — Portland— J.  H.  Wilbur — Oregon  City — Salem — 
Ministers, 109 

CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Name  Oregon — Description — Columbia  River  and  Valley 
Willamette  River — Umpqua  and  Rogue  Rivers — Wash- 
ington— Climate — Camp-meeting   Lunatic  —  Rook    Creek 
Camp-meeting  —  "  Two-seed"  Baptist  —  Sautiam    Camp- 
meeting — Doctrinal  Preaching, 123 

CHAPTER  X. 

Toils  and  Hardships — Muleback  Riding — Trip  to  Washington 
in  December,  1852  —  An  Inhospitable  Priest  —  Lost — A 
Hitter  Cold  Night— Narrow  Escape  from  Freezing— Christ- 
mas Walk  in  Deep  Snow  Twenty-six  Miles  — Floods 
out, 134 

CHAPTER.  XL 
Sloughs — Weddings  and  Funerals — Incidents, 124 


CONTENTS.  15 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Jargon — Wolves — Trip  with  Bishop  Simpson — Bishop  Ames  in 
Oregon  in  1853 — Organization  of  Oregon  Conference — 
Educational  Plants— F.  S.  Hoyt— Other  Preachers— Con- 
ference of  1854 — Bishop  Simpson's  Sermon — Reminis- 
cences of  his  Visit  to  Oregon— Incident,   ....  Page  148 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

With  Bishop  Simpson  on  the  Columbia  River — Bishop  Baker 
at  Oregon  Conference,  1855 — Delegate  to  General  Confer- 
ence—  Pacific  Christian  Advocate  Founded  —  General 
Conference  Incidents — Elected  Editor — Fortieth  Anniver- 
sary of  the  Advocate, 166 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Bishop  Simpson's  Last  Visit  to  Oregon,  1862 — Buggy-ride 
with  him  to  Yreka — Appeal  Case  tried  before  Bishop 
Janes — National  Republican  Convention  in  Baltimore, 
1864 — Oregon  a  Free  State — ContrastSj 180 

CHAPTER  XV. 
A  Stage  Trip  from  Oregon  across  the  Plains,  in  1864,    .    .  194 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
Adventures  with  Indians  and  Wild  Beasts, 215 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Oregon  and  Slavery — Secession — Editorials  in  Advocate,  .  224 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Thanksgiving  Sermon,  1862 — Christian  Patriotism — The  Re- 
bellion,   238 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Oregon  and  the  Northwest  Boundary — General  Scott — Our 
First  Mission  House  in  Oregon, 258 


1 6  CONTENTS. 

Cbird  period— Reconstruction. 

CHAPTER  XX. 

A  Year's  Absence  from  the  Conference  for  Rest  and  for  Work 
in  the  Army— Christian  Work  in  the  Army— City  Point — 
Care  of  Hospital  Ward — Work  During  a  Bloody  Engage- 
ment at  Hatcher's  Run, Page  271 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Bishop  Clark's  Visit  and  Work  in  East  Tennessee  in  1865 — Or- 
ganizes the  Holston  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episco- 
pal Church— History  of  the  Proceedings, 281 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

History  of  the  Reorganization  continued — Letter  Concerning 
Bishop  Clark's  Work  in  the  South, 300 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Letter  from  Nashville  Concerning  Reconstruction — Editorial 
in  Western  Christian  Advocate — Work  on  Knoxville  Dis- 
trict— Visit  to  Asheville — Perils — Misunderstandings,  .  310 


fourth  period— Hs  tlnited  States  Consul* 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

United  States  Consul  to  Kingston,  Jamaica — Reasons  super- 
inducing— Duties  of  the  Office — Cuban  Excitements — 
Steamer  Edgar  Stuart — Steamer  Virginius — Captain 
Fry's  Farewell  to  his  Wife — Editorial  in  Western  Chris- 
tian Advocate  on  "  The  Spanish  Difficulty," 327 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Events  in  the  Consulate — Visit  of  Frigate  Tennessee  to  King- 
ston— Bishop  Coxe — Commissioners  to  San  Domingo — 
History  and  Description  of  Jamaica, 339 


CONTENTS.  17 

fifth  period— Olork  in  Ohio. 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Return  to  United  States— Secretary  American  Colonization 
Society — Residence  in  Cincinnati— Illness  and  Death  of 
Mrs.  Pearne— Resignation  of  Secretaryship— Transfers  to 
Cincinnati  Conference— Appointed  to  Grace  Church,  Day- 
ton—Second Marriage,  to  Miss  McDonald— Dayton  Dis- 
trict—Unveiling a  Painting— Address  — Urbana  — Wesley 
Chapel,  Cincinnati — Centennial  Sermon,  ....  Page  363 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Central  Church,  Springfield— God  in  the  Constitution— Answer 
to  Ingersoll— First  Church,  Xenia—  Semi-centennial  Ser- 
mon—Hillsboro  District  — Hillsboro  College  — Hillsboro 
Charge  — A  Remarkable  Event  — The  Gospel  on  Horse- 
back—Closing Words, 410 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 

♦ 

Thomas  H.  Pearne  at  the  Age  of  Thirty 

Years, Frontispiece. 

Oregon  Presiding  Ei<der  and  his  Faithfui, 

Mui<e, Face  Page  134 

Thomas  H.  Pearne  at  the  Age  of  Seventy- 
eight  Years, Face  Page  410 


Firxt  ^eritrri. 

Beginning  Itinerant  Life. 


CHAPTER  I. 

1WAS  well  born.     Like  Paul,  I  was  free  born. 
My  birth  date  is  June  7,  1820. 

"My  boast  is  not,  that  I  deduce  my  birth 
From  loins  enthroned  and  rulers  of  the  earth; 
But  higher  far  my  great  pretensions  rise, 
The  child  of  parents  passed  into  the  skies." 

My  parents  were,  on  my  mother's  side,  of  the  hardy 
Cornish  stock;  on  my  father's  side,  of  Rochester 
Bridge,  Kent  County,  London.  Father  was  strictly 
a  Cockney;  i.  e.,  a  Londoner;  mother  was  a  York- 
shire woman.  The  former  inherited  the  culture 
and  keenness  of  observation  of  the  civic  conditions 
of  his  birth  and  early  years.  Mother  transmitted 
to  me  the  vigor  and  robustness  of  her  own  sturdy 
constitution.  Both  lived  to  a  ripe  age,  each  of 
them  dying  when  about  seventy-four.  Both  were 
members  of  the  Church  of  England.  Mother's  an- 
cestors for  two  generations  had  been  Wesleyans. 
Her  father  and  her  grandfather  were  local  preach- 
ers in  Mr.  Wesley's  Connection.  The  tradition 
runs  that  on  mother's  side  there  was  a  dash  of  the 
Wesley  blood  in  our  veins. 

Yet  while  both  my  parents  had  the  forms  of 
godliness  by  their  membership  in  the  Church  of 
England,  neither  of  them  knew  its  power.  They 
had  never  experienced  what  is  understood,  among 
Methodists,  as  a  change  of  heart.  On  their  arrival 
in  New  York,  a  Methodist  and  a  relative  inquired 


22        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

of  father  whether  he  had  ever  been  converted,  and 
how  his  soul  was  prospering.  It  was  the  first  time 
in  his  life  that  such  questions  had  ever  been  ad- 
dressed to  him.  The  same  person  invited  them  to 
attend  a  revival-meeting,  then  going  on  in  Duane 
Street  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  New  York. 
In  the  first  Methodist  meeting  they  ever  attended 
they  went  forward  to  the  altar  for  prayers,  and 
united  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  as 
seekers  of  religion.  I  have  often  heard  my  father 
say  that  he  was  indebted,  under  God,  for  his  salva- 
tion to  the  zeal  of  the  Newi  York  Methodists,  and 
to  this  wise  provision  for  receiving  persons  as  seek- 
ers of  religion  on  trial  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church. 

The  earliest  years  of  my  life  were  spent  in  New 
York.  When  I  was  five  years  old — i.  e.,  in  1825 — 
my  father  moved  with  his  family  into  Central  New 
York.  We  settled  in  a  place  called  New  York 
Mills,  a  cotton  factory  village  in  Oneida  County, 
which  employed  some  five  hundred  operatives. 
The  place  was  three  miles  east  from  Utica,  and  one 
mile  west  from  Whitesboro.  Father's  family  was 
typically  large.  It  consisted  of  ten  children — seven 
sons  and  three  daughters.  One  died  in  infancy; 
another  in  his  ninth  year.  A  third  died  at  four- 
teen. The  others  lived  to  adult  age.  Their  names 
were,  respectively,  William,  Nathaniel,  Thomas, 
Francis,  Mary,  Harriet,  Benjamin,  John,  and  Hes- 
ter. Hester  was  called  home  when  fourteen,  John 
Wesley  at  twenty-three,  Harriet  at  twenty-five,  Na- 
thaniel at  fifty,  and  William  at  seventy-five.     His 


THE  FAMILY — INSTRUMENTAL   MUSIC.  2$ 

ministerial  life  began  when  he  was  twenty-one,  and 
continued  fifty-four  years.  Nathaniel  was  a  mer- 
chant. For  many  years  he  was  in  the  wholesale 
store  of  A.  T.  Stewart,  New  York;  and  for  a  few 
years  he  kept  a  retail  store  on  Bleecker  Street. 
Benjamin  was  a  mechanic.  John  Wesley  was  a 
printer,  a  compositor  in  the  office  of  the  New  York 
Commercial  Advertiser.  Three  of  the  family  re- 
main :  the  writer,  sister  Mary,  and  brother  Benja- 
min ;  the  latter,  respectively,  in  Cortland  and  Ox- 
ford, New  York.  Those  Who  have  gone,  died  in 
the  Lord,  after  lives  of  piety  and  usefulness.  All 
the  children  in  my  father's  family  were  converted 
in  early  childhood,  and  united  with  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  most  of  them  before  the  age 
of  twelve. 

In  my  boyhood,  the  introduction  of  instru- 
mental music  in  the  Sunday  service  created  much 
agitation  and  violent  contention.  A  maiden  lady 
of  some  maturity  came  into  the  church  while  the 
first  hymn  was  being  sung.  For  the  first  time  in- 
struments had  been  introduced  into  the  choir  in  the 
gallery;  but  as  she  was  under  the  gallery,  directly 
below  where  the  choir  sat,  she  did  not  observe  the 
musical  instruments,  and  she  sang  from  the  same 
hymn-book  with  my  mother  with  apparent  zest 
and  delight.  After  the  prayer,  and  when  the  second 
hymn  was  announced,  the  instruments  sounded  the 
pitch.  "What  is  that?"  said  she  to  my  mother. 
"Musical  instruments,"  was  the  answer  given.  She 
was  seized  with  hysterical  convulsions,  which  lasted 
several  days. 


24        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

Father  and  mother  and  my  oldest  brother,  and 
our  hired  girl,  with  three  other  persons,  united  with 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  by  letter,  and 
were  organized  into  a  class  by  the  Methodist  min- 
ister stationed  in  Utica,  and  my  father  was  ap- 
pointed class-leader.  Father  held  a  license  as  a 
local  preacher.  For  a  time  we  had  meetings  in  our 
house,  and  then  the  mill  company  assisted  the  vil- 
lagers in  building  both  a  Methodist  church  and  a 
Presbyterian  church.  In  both  these  churches  we 
had  sweeping  revivals  of  religion.  In  the  Presby- 
terian Church,  Rev.  Charles  G.  Finney  was  the 
evangelist.  In  one  of  these  revivals  a  large  num- 
ber of  children  were  converted.  Among  these  were 
two  brothers  and  a  sister  of  mine,  and  also  Edward 
G.  Andrews,  at  present,  and  for  twenty-five  years 
past,  one  of  our  honored  and  beloved  bishops.  My 
father  was  a  schoolteacher  in  England  and  in  this 
country,  and  he  was  also  an  accountant.  For  sev- 
eral years  he  was  the  clerk  and  the  cashier  of  the 
factory.  He  was  a  man  of  large  reading,  of  good 
education,  and  of  literary  tastes  and  pursuits.  He 
had  a  somewhat  full  library.  As  I  was  a  voracious 
reader,  I  soon  held  its  treasures  in  my  possession. 

Our  home  was  a  bright,  Christian  home,  the 
abode  of  content  and  piety.  It  was  well  ordered, 
full  of  cheer  and  comfort.  The  family  were  taught 
to  fear  and  love  and  honor  God.  Family  worship 
was  kept  up  morning  and  evening.  The  religion 
of  the  family  was  sunny  and  joyous.  Music  was 
much  loved  and  enjoyed.  We  were  a  very  happy 
family.      We   knew   and   sang  the  old   Methodist 


FATHER  A    TRAVELING  PREACHER.  25 

hymns  and  tunes.  Mother  was  a  very  sweet  singer. 
Father  sang  some;  but  his  voice  was  less  musical 
than  mother's.  Father  regularly  filled  appoint- 
ments as  a  local  preacher  in  places  not  too  far  from 
our  home. 

In  1832  father  entered  the  traveling  connection, 
in  which  he  continued  thirty-six  years.  His  death, 
at  the  age  of  seventy-four,  was  peaceful  and  tri- 
umphant. His  last  words  were,  "Happy!  happy!" 
Mother's  last  words  were :  "Though  I  walk  through 
the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  I  will  fear  no 
evil:  for  thou  art  with  me:  thy  rod  and  thy  staff 
they  comfort  me."  At  fourteen  I  was  made  a  class- 
leader  of  a  large  class,  mostly  of  females,  some 
forty  or  fifty  of  them.  Six  months  later  I  was 
licensed  to  exhort,  and  at  fifteen  I  was  licensed 
as  a  local  preacher.  In  1836-37  I  attended  school 
at  Cazenovia  Seminary,  in  Madison  County,  New 
York.  The  principal  of  the  school  was  Rev. 
George  Peck,  D.  D.,  who  later  filled  a  large  place 
in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  as  editor  of  the 
Christian  Advocate,  New  York,  and  the  Methodist 
Quarterly  Review. 

OLD-TIME  VETERANS  —  PHCEBUS — MERWIN — BANGS. 

The  writer's  feet  first  pressed  the  soil  of  old 
Oneida  Conference  in  his  childhood.  In  his  early 
manhood  he  traveled  the  circuits  and  ministered  in 
some  of  the  stations  of  that  goodly  field.  There 
were  giants  in  those  days.  He  saw  them.  He 
heard  them.  He  remembers  them.  However  far 
his  path  may  have  since  diverged  from  those  earlier 


26        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

scenes,  and  however  diversified  the  experiences  and 
events  of  the  later  years,  memory  has  emblamed  the 
recollections  of  those  golden  times.  Those  mem- 
ories reach  distinctly  to  1828. 

One  of  the  well-remembered  events  of  that 
early  period  was  about  that  time.  It  was  the  pres- 
ence in  my  father's  home,  as  guests,  of  three  vener- 
able preachers  of  the  New  York  Conference.  They 
were  men  of  large  stature  and  fine  presence:  tall, 
portly,  and  of  courteous  bearing.  The  third  ses- 
sion of  the  Oneida  Conference  was  held  in  Utica, 
N.  Y.,  three  miles  distant  from  New  York  Mills, 
the  place  of  my  boyhood  home.  These  persons 
were  visitors  at  the  Oneida  Conference  from  the 
New  York  Conference.  New  York  Mills  was  then 
a  new  charge.  Two  years  before  this  the  first  class 
of  seven  persons  was  organized  in  my  father's 
house;  four  of  them,  as  already  stated,  were  of  our 
family.  The  name  of  the  new  charge  first  appeared 
in  the  Annual  Minutes  in  1826,  with  Charles  Giles 
as  pastor.  In  four  years  it  had  grown  to  three 
hundred  and  sixteen  members.  It  was  now  assist- 
ing in  sustaining  the  Conference.  The  manly 
guests,  already  named,  were :  Dr.  William  Phoebus, 
Rev.  Samuel  Merwin,  and  Rev.  Nathan  Bangs. 

Dr.  Phoebus  was  then  an  old  man.  He  had 
been  forty-seven  years  in  the  itinerancy.  He  began 
his  ministry  in  1783,  the  year  before  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  Thus 
my  association  with  him  in  childhood  relates  me, 
personally,  with  the  beginning  of  our  organic 
Church  life.     Dr.  Phoebus  was  well-preserved,  vi- 


VETERANS — PHOEBUS,    MERWIN.  2J 

vacious,  and  most  agreeable  in  his  manners.  He 
was  born  in  Maryland  in  1754.  After  having  trav- 
eled ten  years  he  located,  and  after  a  brief  term 
he  re-entered  the  itinerancy.  In  1798  he  was  again 
located,  and  engaged  in  the  practice  of  medicine 
in  New  York.  Eight  years  later  he  joined  the  New 
York  Conference.  In  1824  he  was  superannuated, 
in  which  relation  he  remained  until  his  death,  in 
1 83 1.  His  mind  was  vigorous.  His  knowledge 
was  large  and  various.  In  men  and  books  he  was 
well  versed,  and  also  in  the  early  records  of  the 
Church  and  in  the  different  systems  of  Church 
order  and  government.  He  was  large  in  person, 
and  noble  looking.  His  manner  was  genial.  He 
was  quite  attentive  to  children,  who  in  turn  loved 
and  admired  him.  He  was  fluent  in  speech,  and 
well  stored  in  racy  incidents,  which  he  rendered 
graphically.  Upon  my  young  imagination  he  made 
a  deep  impression,  never  since  effaced.  He  was  a 
leading  member  of  the  General  Conferences  of 
1808  and  181 2.  He  was  a  strong  man  in  Meth- 
odism, aiding  effectively  in  extending  her  borders 
and  strengthening  her  stakes  during  her  immature 
period.  He  helped  to  lay  broad  and  deep  her  foun- 
dations, upon  which  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  has  had  a  most  astonishing  growth  in  num- 
bers, activities,  and  resources. 

The  second  of  these  eminent  ministers  was  Rev. 
Samuel  Merwin,  who  was  yet  in  his  vigorous  prime. 
He,  too,  was  genteel  and  elegant.  He  was  prob- 
ably a  little  above  fifty,  and  had  been  preaching 
thirty  years.    He  was  above  average  height,  of  full 


28        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF   ITINERANT    WORK. 

habit,  yet  not  corpulent.  Dr.  Bangs  was  less  corpu- 
lent than  Phoebus,  and  taller  than  Merwin.  He 
baptized  me  in  my  early  childhood,  in  Duane  Street 
Church,  New  York — of  which  fact  I  still  hold  a 
very  distinct  recollection.  As  I  recall  him  he  was 
slightly  round-shouldered,  with  his  head  somewhat 
inclined  to  one  side.  He,  too,  was  a  most  genial, 
interesting  person.  All  the  early  Methodist  preach- 
ers were  specially  attentive  to  the  children  in  the 
families  where  they  were  guests.  Dr.  Jesse  T. 
Peck,  afterward  bishop,  was  also  a  frequent  visitor 
at  our  house,  and  we  much  enjoyed  his  visits. 

My  call  to  the  ministry  antedated  my  conver- 
sion. It  was  very  strong  and  clear,  and  I  even 
commenced  to  preach  in  my  eighth  year.  My 
entrance  into  the  pastoral  work  was  somewhat 
peculiar.  In  the  fall  of  1837  I  was  attending  the 
Cazenovia  Seminary,  Rev.  Dr.  George  Peck  the 
principal.  I  had  no  means.  I  boarded  myself,  and 
did  odd  days'  work,  and  I  also  did  chores  in  the 
morning.  I  lived  on  bread  and  milk  and  potatoes 
and  salt,  renting  a  room  and  doing  my  own  cook- 
ing; my  entire  living  costing  me  from  fifty  cents 
to  seventy-five  cents  a  week.  A  vacancy  occurred 
on  a  circuit  some  fifteen  or  twenty  miles  away. 
A  junior  preacher  was  needed.  The  presiding  elder 
came  and  offered  the  place  to  me.  I  remained  on 
this  charge  nearly  two  years.  Near  the  end  of  the 
second  year  I  had  two  offers  to  go  through  col- 
lege. An  Episcopalian,  who  came  to  my  semi- 
monthly services,  and  whose  generous  hospitality 
as  a  host  I  often  shared,  said  to  me  one  evening, 


AN  EARLY  MISTAKE.  29 

"Are  you  very  desirous  of  getting  a  classical  edu- 
cation?" Upon  my  returning  an  affirmative  an- 
swer, he  offered  to  send  me  through  the  Geneva 
College,  an  Episcopalian  institution  in  Western 
New  York,  and  then  through  the  theological 
school  at  the  same  place,  defraying  all  my  expenses, 
and  then  depending  on  me  to  repay  the  debt  as  I 
might  be  able  after  graduation.  I  consulted  my 
father,  who  said  that  meant  that  I  would  enter  the 
ministry  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church.  I 
declined,  with  many  thanks.  A  Methodist  layman 
made  me  the  same  kind  of  an  offer.  He  wished 
me  to  go  to  the  Wesleyan  University  in  Middle- 
town,  Conn.,  then  our  only  collegiate  institution 
in  the  East.  We  had  then  no  theological  school 
in  our  Church.  That  is  the  offer  I  should  have 
accepted.  I  would  have  done  so,  only  that  a  pre- 
siding elder  dissuaded  me,  urging  me  to  enter  the 
Conference  at  once,  and  educate  myself  while  em- 
ployed in  the  pastoral  work.  This  wrong  advice 
I  followed,  and,  being  recommended  to  the  Con- 
ference from  the  charge  on  which  I  had  been  a 
supply  for  almost  two  years,  I  was  admitted  into 
the  Oneida  Conference  in  the  early  autumn  of 

1839. 

I  was  then  nineteen  years  of  age.  I  pursued 
my  studies  in  Greek  and  Latin  and  Hebrew,  gain- 
ing a  smattering  knowledge  in  those  languages. 
But  it  was  a  mistake  not  to  have  obtained  a  clas- 
sical education,  which  has  been  recognized  and 
regretted  through  my  whole  ministry.  While  per- 
haps holding  an  average  grade  among  my  minis- 


30        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

terial  brethren,  I  am  satisfied  I  would  have  been 
much  more  effective  and  useful  in  my  ministry  if 
I  had  more  fully  prepared  myself  by  education. 
There  was  less  blame  for  the  wrong  counsel  of 
presiding  elders  sixty  years  ago  than  now.  Edu- 
cated young  men  are  waiting  every  year  to  enter 
our  itinerancy,  and  those  whose  education  is  in- 
complete should  not  be  allowed  to  enter  the  travel- 
ing ministry.  And  there  is  now  even  less  excuse 
on  the  score  of  poverty  for  failing  to  secure  edu- 
cational preparation  than  there  was  in  the  earlier 
times ;  for  we  have  a  society  in  our  Church,  deserv- 
ing high  commendation  for  it,  which  will  advance 
the  necessary  means  for  attending  school  to  those 
who  are  needy.  In  this  way  the  children's  fund  has 
aided,  by  loans  and  gifts,  six  thousand  young  per- 
sons who  were  called  of  God  to  labor  in  his  work, 
either  as  teachers  or  preachers.  In  the  year  1897 
sixteen  hundred  have  been  thus  assisted.  This  list 
for  a  single  year  includes  persons  of  twenty-five 
nationalities.  If,  with  the  knowledge  I  now  have, 
the  life  I  have  lived  could  be  begun  anew,  I  would 
never  commit  the  folly  of  my  early  manhood,  and 
omit  the  opportunities  then  offered  for  acquiring 
an  education. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  first  year  of  my  supply  on  the  Onondaga 
Circuit,  James  Atwell,  of  blessed  memory,  was 
my  colleague;  the  second  year,  Benjamin  G.  Pad- 
dock. Both  were  veterans,  and  both  gave  me  sym- 
pathy, kindness,  and  abundance  of  excellent  in- 
struction. The  early  system  of  our  itinerancy,  of 
going  out  in  pairs,  was  very  advantageous  to  the 
young  ministers.  It  answered  a  good  part  in  their 
training. 

After  my  admission  into  the  Conference  on 
trial,  my  first  appointment  was  on  Truxton  Circuit. 
Lyman  K.  Reddington  was  my  senior  colleague. 
He  died  a  few  years  ago,  aged  over  ninety  years. 
Here  I  spent  my  first  Sabbath  after  Conference. 
I  preached  four  times.  The  plan  of  the  circuit  for 
that  day  was  ten  A.  M.,  Truxton,  preaching  and 
class-meeting.  I  led  the  class  here,  as  also  in  Cuy- 
ler,  five  miles  away,  where  I  preached  at  two  P.  M. 
My  plan  named  the  third  appointment  at  Kinney's 
Settlement,  and  to  stay  at  Kinney's— class-leader. 
I  reached  here  at  five  o'clock.  I  stopped  with  the 
class-leader,  Brother  Kinney.  His  wife  informed 
me  he  had  gone  on  to  meeting.  So  I  concluded  my 
plan  was  wrong,  and  that  five  o'clock  was  the 
proper  hour  for  my  evening  appointment.  I  rode 
on  half  a  mile.  A  large  congregation  was  waiting 
for  the  preacher.  I  entered,  saddlebags  in  hand, 
and  at  once  I  took  my  seat  in  the  teacher's  desk, 

31 


32       SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT  tVORA*. 

for  it  was  a  schoolhouse.  The  congregation  looked 
at  me  with  apparent  curiosity,  for  I  was  a  total 
stranger.  After  a  few  minutes  a  gentleman  beck- 
oned me  to  follow  him  out  of  doors.  He  said: 
"You  are  a  stranger.  May  I  inquire  your  name?" 
I  gave  him  my  name,  and  informed  him  that  I  was 
the  junior  Methodist  preacher,  sent  there  from 
Conference.  He  said:  "My  name  is  Kinney;  I  am 
the  class-leader.  You  will  stay  with  me  to-night. 
Our  meeting  is  across  the  creek  at  our  church,  at 
early  candle-lighting.  This  meeting  here  is  a  Bap- 
tist meeting.  The  people  are  expecting  a  Baptist 
minister  from  Tully.  If  he  does  not  come,  I  doubt 
not  the  people  would  like  you  to  preach  to  them." 
So  we  returned  into  the  house,  and  I  began,  with 
some  shame,  to  take  a  lower  seat.  The  expected 
minister  not  arriving,  I  was  invited  to  preach,  which 
I  did,  and  then  at  evening  at  the  Kinney  Church, 
making  four  sermons  and  two  class-meetings  in  one 
day  and  twelve  miles  of  travel. 

The  next  day  I  hired  a  buggy,  and  started  for 
my  old  circuit  to  get  my  books  and  my  clothes.  I 
passed  through  Cazenovia,  where  my  father  was 
stationed,  and  where  my  presiding  elder,  Dr.  Elias 
Bowen,  lived.  He  changed  me  from  Truxton  cir- 
cuit to  Madison  station,  as  the  minister  who  was 
appointed  there  was  unable  to  serve  them  on  ac- 
count of  ill-health.  The  year  was  a  delightful  one. 
Revivals  occurred,  and  some  fifty  or  sixty  persons 
were  converted.  Here  I  became  acquainted  with 
the  daughter  of  Solomon  Root,  Esq.,  Miss  Ann  P. 
Root,  who,  two  years  later,  became  my  wife,  and 


FIRST  SUNDAY'S   WORK'.  33 

with  whom,  for  thirtyrthree  years,  I  lived  in  happy 
and  prosperous  union  of  hearts  and  hands.  An  in- 
cident in  connection  with  the  wedding  will  be  en- 
joyed : 

I  was  married,  October  5,  1841,  by  my  father, 
who  at  the  time  was  stationed  in  Utica.  As  1 
wanted  to  take  a  wedding  trip  to  Trenton  Falls 
in  my  buggy,  and  return  to  Utica  for  the  Sabbath, 
my  father  exchanged  pulpits  with  me  for  that  Sun- 
day, and  he  went  to  Marcellus  for  me.  I  reached 
Utica  with  my  bride  on  Saturday  night,  putting  up 
at  my  father's  house.  I  grew  up  three  miles  from 
Utica,  and  I  knew  personally  many  of  the  leading 
members  of  that  Church,  where  I  was  to  preach. 
At  Church-time  my  mother  and  myself,  accom- 
panied by  my  wife,  made  our  way  to  the  church. 
As  we  were  about  to  enter  I  saw  Father  Swartwout, 
one  of  the  veterans,  standing  on  the  doorstep  a 
little  distance  away,  with  others  of  the  Official 
Board,  whom  I  knew.  I  told  Mrs.  Pearne  to  go 
in  with  my  mother,  and  I  would  go  and  speak  to 
my  friends  standing  near.  Of  course,  my  wedding 
suit  was  befitting.  A  fine  silk  hat,  a  white  necktie, 
kid  gloves,  morocco  shoes,  etc.  Approaching  my 
venerable  friend,  I  said,  extending  my  hand,  "How 
do  you  do?"  Instead  of  taking  my  hand,  he  eyed 
me  from  head  to  foot,  and  inquired  my  name.  I 
told  him  my  name.  "What !"  said  he,  "are  you  a 
son  of  our  minister?"  "I  am,"  said  I.  "Well,"  said 
he,  "do  you  call  yourself  a  Methodist  minister?" 
"I  do  not  so  call  myself,"  I  replied;  "but  I  am  one 
all  the  same."     "Well,  well,"  said  he,  "you  do  not 

3 


34        SIXTY  ONE    YEARS   OE  ITINERANT   WORK. 

look  like  the  fortieth  cousin  to  a  Methodist 
preacher." 

It  should  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Swartwout 
was  very  plain  in  his  dress.  He  wore  a  white, 
broad-brimmed  hat;  a  single-breasted,  straight- 
collared,  cutaway  coat,  and  straight  boots — not 
rights  and  lefts.  They  were  round-toed  as  well. 
He  added,  "I  suppose  you  have  a  written  sermon  in 
your  pocket,  which  you  will  pull  out  and  read  to 
us."  "No,"  said  I,  "not  that;  I  never  read  my  ser- 
mons, but  I  preach  them.  Come  and  hear  me." 
He  did  hear  me.  I  had  a  fine  time.  He  got  very 
happy  under  my  sermon,  and  shouted,  as  did  some 
others.  At  the  close  of  the  sermon  he  met  me  at 
the  foot  of  the  pulpit  stairs,  and  shook  hands  with 
me  very  cordially,  saying:  "I  take  it  all  back,  what 
I  said  to  you  about  not  looking  like  a  Methodist 
preacher.  You  are  one,  and  I  bid  you  God-speed. 
God  bless  you,  and  make  you  very  useful !" 

My  next  station  was  Marcellus,  in  Onondaga 
County.  It  adjoined  the  circuit  in  which  my  min- 
istry began.  We  had  two  prosperous  years,  and 
nearly  one  hundred  souls  professed  conversion. 
During  this  year  I  formed  the  acquaintance  of  a 
young  man  and  his  father — artists,  portrait-paint- 
ers— who  occupied  rooms  in  a  disused  clock  fac- 
tory. They  came  to  Church,  and  professed  great 
interest  in  me.  I  sat  for  my  likeness  in  crayon.  It 
was  not  very  satisfactory.  There  was  an  air  of 
mystery  about  them,  and  when  I  would  call  they 
seemed  embarrassed.  The  mystery  was  afterwards 
solved  by  the  discovery  in  their  rooms  of  counter- 


A   SINGULAR   FUNERAL.  35 

feiter's  implements;  and  they  were  arrested  for 
counterfeiting.  The  portrait-painting  was  a  blind. 
During  this  year  I  attended  a  funeral  some 
eight  or  ten  miles  away.  It  was  of  a  lady  of  nearly 
ninety  years.  She  was  the  mother  of  twelve  chil- 
dren, some  forty-live  grandchildren,  and  thirteen 
great-grandchildren.  They  were  Holland  Dutch 
by  descent.  The  old  lady  came  from  Holland  in 
her  young  married  life,  with  some  two  or  three  of 
her  children.  The  family  had  gone  twenty  miles 
to  secure  a  Dutchman  to  conduct  the  funeral.  He 
could  not  serve  them,  and,  at  his  suggestion,  they 
came  for  me.  They  were  wealthy  people.  The 
funeral  was  in  their  house.  It  was  elegantly  fur- 
nished, and  they  were  evidently  luxurious  livers. 
I  had  not  been  preaching  more  than  fifteen  min- 
utes when  they  broke  out  in  loud  lamentations  and 
grief,  which  continued  for  some  minutes.  Indeed, 
it  seemed  uncontrollable.  It  prevented  any  further 
preaching.  We  rode  two  miles  through  a  drench- 
ing rain  to  the  burial.  I  returned  by  request  to  the 
house,  and  dined  with  the  family.  The  dinner  was 
elaborate.  Five  or  six  courses  of  meat,  including 
beef,  mutton  and  pork,  venison,  capons,  turkey, 
duck,  and  goose,  and  other  courses  of  dessert.  The 
sideboard  was  laden  with  liquors  of  various  kinds, 
of  which  nearly  all  partook.  I  was  urged  to  take 
some  wine  or  stronger  stimulant ;  which,  however, 
I  declined.  The  hilarity  of  the  dinner  festival  was 
fully  the  counterpart  of  the  demonstrations  of  sor- 
row and  mourning  which  had  interrupted  my 
preaching.     On  leaving,  I  was  presented  with  two 


36        SI  XT  V- ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK, 

dollars  for  my  attendance  and  with  profuse  compli- 
ments for  my  sermon,  which  they  averred  had  been 
very  satisfactory.  This  funeral  will  give  an  idea 
of  the  prevalent  customs  of  those  early  times. 

On  this  station  we  had  a  large  number  of  Eng- 
lish people,  who  had  come  to  America  a  few  years 
before,  having  been  members  of  the  Wesleyan  so- 
ciety in  England.     Among  them  was  a  venerable 
superannuated  minister  of  eighty-four  years.     He 
was  a  fine  preacher  and  a  sweet-spirited  man.     His 
name  was  James  Jay,  a  relative  of  William  Jay,  of 
Bath,  an  Independent  or  Congregational  minister, 
who  had  published  a  valuable  collection  of  Scrip- 
ture passages  and  comments  for  every  morning  and 
evening.     Benn  Pitman,  the  stenographer,  said  a 
few  years  ago  in  Cincinnati,  "that  he  was  probably 
the  only  person  in  the  United  States  who  had  seen 
those    who    had    known    John    Wesley    and    had 
shaken  hands  with  him  and  heard  him  preach.    Mr. 
Jay  I  knew  intimately  for  two  years.     He  often 
preached  in  my  pulpit.     He  and  his  family  were 
members  of  my  Church.     He  had  been  for  several 
years  one  of  Mr.  Wesley's  helpers  or  assistants  be- 
fore Mr.  Wesley  died.     Mr.  Jay  knew  him  well  for 
four  years  before  his  death.     My  grandfather  on 
my    mother's    side,    Thomas    Hall,    was    a    local 
preacher  in   Mr.    Wesley's   Connection,    and   had 
often  heard  him  preach.     Mrs.  Lester,  a  venerable 
old  lady,  whom  I  well  knew,  and  who  was  a  fre- 
quent visitor  at  my  father's  house  in  my  early  teens, 
was  a  member  of  Mr.  Wesley's  society  for  ten  years 
before  his  death.     She  had  often  heard  him  preach, 


INCIDENTS   OF  MR.    WESLEY'S  LIFE.  37 

and  had  been  present  in  his  society  meeting  or 
class-meeting  when  Mr.  Wesley  led  the  class. 

Mr.  Jay  gave  me  two  incidents  of  Wesley's  life 
which  he  witnessed.  Mr.  Wesley  came  into  his 
circuit  and  spent  a  day.  At  the  dinner,  at  which 
were  several  Wesleyan  preachers  and  circuit  offi- 
cials, there  was  a  little  disposition  to  gossip.  One 
of  the  preachers  remarked  that  one  of  Mr.  Wesley's 
preachers  had  become  very  gay  in  his  apparel.  He 
had  taken  to  wearing  ruffled  bosom  shirts.  "Well," 
said  Mr.  Wesley,  plucking  Mr.  Jay's  coat,  ''when 
Jemmy  can  not  preach  without  a  ruffled  shirt,  he 
shall  have  one  if  he  wants  it."  After  dinner,  and 
following  the  afternoon  sermon,  Mr.  Wesley  started 
on  his  journey,  accompanied  by  the  ministers,  all 
well  mounted.  After  going  about  two  miles  they 
alighted,  and  Mr.  Wesley  sang  a  hymn  with  them 
and  pra'yed.     Then  they  shook  hands  and  parted. 

From  Marcellus  I  was  sent  to  Skaneateles, 
seven  miles  west  from  Marcellus.  I  remained 
here  only  one  year;  but  my  return  was  earnestly 
requested.  Here  also,  as  at  Marcellus,  was  a  large 
sprinkling  of  English  people.  They  were  all  fine 
musicians,  instrumental  and  vocal,  and  there  were 
four  of  them,  each  of  whom  wanted  very  badly  to 
lead  the  singing  in  the  Church.  Sometimes  two 
of  them  would  hasten  to  select  and  start  the  tune 
before  the  other  could  get  in  his  work.  The  di- 
vision of  leaders  divided  the  Church  into  segments 
of  about  equal  numbers.  I  announced  that  I  would 
dispense  with  the  choir  and  choristers,  and  I  would 
lead  the  singing  from  the  pulpit.     This  gave  us 


38        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

pause  from  friction.  I  continued  it  through  the 
year. 

In  1864,  eighteen  years  later,  I  returned  from 
Oregon  to  attend  the  General  Conference,  to  which 
I  was  a  delegate.  I  spent  a  Conference  Sunday  in 
Skaneateles,  where  I  was  made  most  cordially  wel- 
come. I  preached  in  the  afternoon  from  1  Samuel 
ii,  30:  "Them  that  honor  me  I  will  honor;  but  they 
that  despise  me  shall  be  lightly  esteemed."  Bishop 
Simpson  had  preached  one  of  his  magnificent  ser- 
mons in  the  morning.  The  reunion  was  very 
pleasant.  The  year  I  was  pastor  in  Skaneateles  was 
successful.  Large  congregations  attended  upon 
the  preaching  and  upon  the  week-night  services. 
Our  accessions  and  conversions  amounted  to  one 
hundred. 

The  following  year  I  was  sent  to  Auburn,  five 
miles  west  from  Skaneateles.  The  stone  church 
was  sixty  by  ninety  feet ;  a  large  congregation  and 
membership.  The  Millerite  excitement  ran  very 
high.  I  had  twelve  class-leaders.  Six  of  them  had 
embraced  the  Millerite  delusion,  which  was  that 
Jesus  was  coming  in  March,  1843,  m  person  from 
heaven  to  judge  mankind,  and  to  set  up  his  millen- 
nial kingdom.  They  converted  their  class-meetings 
into  Second  Advent  discussions,  and  dissensions 
threatened  permanently  to  disrupt  the  Church.  I 
took  their  class-books  from  them,  and  gave  them  to 
those  who  would  teach  a  more  edifying  doctrine. 
My  predecessor  had  taken  a  crowd  of  people  of  dis- 
reputable notoriety  into  the  Church,  and  for  the 
first  six  months  of  the  year  we  were  holding  leaders' 


SECOND   PASTORAL    TERM  IN  MADISON.  39 

and  stewards'  meetings  weekly,  dropping  out  the 
unruly  and  disturbing  elements,  until  we  had  dis- 
posed of  one  hundred  and  twenty,  by  dropping  or 
expelling  them.  Then  we  had  a  powerful  revival, 
and  one  hundred  and  fifty  were  added  to  the 
Church. 

At  the  end  of  the  year  we  were  returned  to 
Madison,  our  first  station.  Family  reasons  induced 
this.  My  wife's  mother  was  in  feeble  health,  and 
requested  that  Mrs.  Pearne  should  return  to  her 
home  and  cheer  her  closing  days.  The  year  was 
marked  by  great  peace  and  some  ingathering  of 
souls.  In  Madison,  Marcellus,  and  Skaneateles  we 
made  substantial  improvements  in  church  and  par- 
sonage property.  In  Madison  we  built  a  new 
church,  and  introduced  into  it  a  pipe-organ,  the 
first  one  introduced  into  a  Methodist  church  in 
New  York  State  west  of  the  Hudson  River.  It 
was  not  dedicated  until  my  successor,  Rev.  A.  J. 
Dana,  was  in  charge.  When  the  dedication  of  the 
church  occurred,  Dr.  Bowen,  the  presiding  elder, 
was  requested  to  dedicate  the  Lord's  house.  He 
objected  to  do  so,  unless  the  organ  was  removed. 
The  committee  waited  upon  Dr.  Joseph  Cross,  the 
stationed  minister  of  Cazenovia,  and  asked  him  if 
he  would  dedicate  the  church  with  an  organ  in  it. 
He  promptly  answered  that  he  would,  and  he  would 
also  dedicate  the  organ  with  every  pipe  in  it.  This 
statement  was  announced  to  Dr.  Bowen,  and  he 
consented  to  officiate.  This  was  in  his  dedicatory 
prayer:  "O  Lord,  we  dedicate  this  beautiful  church- 
building,  with  all  appropriate  and  necessary  appur- 


40        SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

tenances  thereunto  belonging  or  in  any  manner 
appertaining,  to  thy  great  name  and  worship." 
The  circumlocution  was  his  way  of  avoiding  and 
evading  the  recognition  of  the  organ.  If  interro- 
gated upon  the  subject,  he  could  make  answer  that 
the  organ  was  neither  "appropriate  nor  necessary." 


CHAPTER  III. 

DURING  the  May  of  the  Conference  year,  1844, 
I  attended  the  General  Conference  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  which  met  in  Green 
Street  Church,  New  York,  as  a  spectator,  and  saw 
and  heard  all  that  occurred  in  that  historic  Confer- 
ence on  the  subject  of  Bishop  James  O.  Andrew 
and  Rev.  Francis  A.  Harding,  as  slaveholding 
bishop  and  minister.  Bishop  Andrew  was  sus- 
pended from  episcopal  functions  as  long  as  the 
impediment  of  his  connection  with  slavery  should 
remain.  The  Conference  refused  to  reverse  the 
action  of  the  Baltimore  Conference,  by  which  Mr. 
Harding  had  been  expelled  from  the  Conference 
for  being  a  slaveholding  minister.  There  were 
giants  in  that  body  on  both  sides  of  the  great  de- 
bate, wrhich  lasted  through  several  days.  That  was 
a  very  live  question  in  our  section  of  the  country, 
and  some  twenty  thousand  of  our  members  in  the 
Eastern  and  Northern  States  seceded  from  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  organized  the 
Wesleyan  Methodist  Connection. 

The  whole  scene  of  that  General  Conference  is 
mapped  out  in  my  memory  as  vividly  and  strongly 
as  though  it  occurred  yesterday.  The  great 
speeches  on  the  side  of  the  North,  were  by  Ham- 
line,  Peck,  Bangs,  Olin,  Durbin,  John  A.  Collins 
of  Baltimore,  and  others.  On  the  South  side,  Will- 
iam A.  Smith,  of  Virginia;  George  F.  Pierce,  of 

41 


42        SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    ICO  A' A'. 

Georgia;  Ignatius  A.  Few,  of  Georgia;  William 
Capers,  of  South  Carolina ;  and  John  Early,  of  Vir- 
ginia. The  Ohio  Conference  delegation  impressed 
me  very  strongly.  It  included  James  B.  Finley 
and  Joseph  M.  Trimble,  whose  resolution  was  the 
one  at  last  adopted,  and  it  included,  also,  William 
II.  Raper,  who  impressed  me  as  the  noblest  Roman 
of  them  all.  Edmund  S.  Janes  and  E.  E.  Hamline 
were  elected  bishops. 

In  more  orderly  and  elaborate  form,  a  few  years 
ago  I  carefully  wrote  up  my  impressions  of  that 
General  Conference.  It  is  too  valuable  as  a  his- 
torical narrative,  so  detailed,  not  to  put  it  into 
these  pages.    It  is  as  follows,  viz. : 

PERSONAL  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  THE  HISTORIC 

CONFERENCE  OF   1844. 

Some  months  since  a  call  was  made  through  the 
press  to  ascertain  how  many  members  of  the  General 
Conference  of  1844  were  still  living.  Six  or  seven 
responded  to  the  call.  One  of  them — James  M.  Jame- 
son, of  the  Ohio  Conference — furnished  the  Western 
several  interesting  papers  on  the  subject,  giving  his 
recollections  of  the  men  and  the  action  of  that  body. 
They  had  rare  value  as  historical  contributions.  No 
call  has  been  made  for  papers  from  those  who  were 
present  as  spectators  only  at  that  memorable  Confer- 
ence. Yet  it  may  add  a  chapter,  not  without  value, 
if  I  shall  furnish  my  personal  recollections  and  im- 
pressions of  that  historic  body,  not  as  a  member,  but 
as  a  deeply  interested  onlooker. 

Bishop  James  O.  Andrew  had  become  a  slave- 
holder by  marriage  with  a  lady  who  owned  slaves. 
He  had  been  elected  bishop  twelve  years  before  as  a 


THE   GENERAL    CONFERENCE    OF  1844.  43 

non-slavehokling  minister.  He  could  not  have  been 
elected  bishop  if  he  had  been  a  slaveholder.  There 
has  never  been  a  moment  in  the  history  of  the  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church  when  a  slaveholding  minister 
could  have  been  elected  a  bishop.  Francis  A.  Hard- 
ing— a  member  of  the  Baltimore  Conference — had 
married  a  slaveholding  woman,  and  so  violated  a  rule 
of  the  Discipline,  as  the  Baltimore  Conference  held. 
For  this,  as  he  refused  to  disentangle  himself  by  manu- 
mitting his  slaves,  the  Conference  suspended  him. 
From  this  decision  he  appealed  to  the  General  Con- 
ference of  1844.  The  decision  of  the  appeal  sustained 
the  action  of  the  Baltimore  Conference. 

Bishop  Andrew's  case  was  finally  settled  by  adopt- 
ing a  resolution  offered  by  J.  B.  Finley  and  J.  M. 
Trimble,  which,  after  reciting  the  complications  of 
the  episcopacy  with  slavery,  and  so  marring  Bishop 
Andrew's  acceptability  as  a  general  superintendent, 
declared  "that  it  is  the  sense  of  this  General  Confer- 
ence that  he  desist  from  the  exercise  of  this  office  so 
long  as  the  impediment  remains."  This  was  carried 
by  a  vote  of  in  to  69.  Before  the  Conference  assem- 
bled in  New  York,  and  during  its  session,  public  ex- 
citement had  become  strong  and  intense.  Abolition- 
ism had  become  widely  prevalent  in  the  non-slavehold- 
ing  States.  Hence  the  meeting  of  the  Conference,  the 
action  expected  to  be  taken,  and  the  action,  as  stated 
above,  actually  taken,  aroused  strong  and  general 
agitation  and  excitement.  The  results  of  that  action 
in  the  division  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
and  later  in  the  attempted  dissolution  of  the  Federal 
Union,  and  also  in  the  bloody  Civil  War  which  en- 
sued, have  ever  since  given  a  wide,  living,  and  perma- 
nent interest  to  the  General  Conference*  of  1844  and 
its  action. 

For  two  weeks,  from  day  to  day,  with  the  liveliest 


44        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

interest  in  its  doings  as  an  Abolitionist,  I  sat  as  a 
spectator  in  the  gallery  of  Green  Street  Church,  New 
York,  and  watched  the  proceedings.  The  whole  scene 
was  one  of  vivid,  thrilling  interest.  It  made  an  im- 
pression on  my  mind  never  effaced.  All  the  incidents 
and  conditions  are  as  distinct  in  memory  as  though 
occurring  but  yesterday.  The  grouping  of  the  lead- 
ing delegations,  and  also  the  persons,  features,  forms, 
and  voices  of  the  chief  leaders  and  movers  of  thought 
in  the  body,  as  I  now  recall  them,  are  as  distinct  in 
memory  as  when  I  sat  there  forty-eight  years  ago,  and 
observed  them.  Upon  the  left  of  the  pulpit  were  the 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia  delegations.  In  the  same 
vicinity,  and  on  both  sides  of  the  aisle,  were  the  other 
principal  Southern  delegations. 

On  the  right-hand  side  of  the  pulpit,  and  extending 
up  the  seats  on  that  side  of  the  house,  were  the  New 
York,  Baltimore,  and  New  England  delegations. 
Across  the  aisle  from  them,  and  extending  toward  the 
rear  of  the  house,  were  the  Philadelphia,  Oneida,  Troy, 
Genesee,  Tittsburg,  Ohio,  and  other  delegations.  In 
fact,  the  Southern  Conferences  were  ranged  on  one 
side  of  the  house,  and  the  Northern  and  Border  Con- 
ferences were  on  the  other  side  of  the  house.  This 
could  not  have  been  a  coincidence.  It  must  have  been 
designed.  I  do  not  claim  exact  accuracy  in  the  detail 
of  these  statements.     Substantially,  they  are  correct. 

In  the  Virginia  delegation  were  two  noted  men — 
John  Early,  an  elderly  man,  of  coarse  features  and 
severely  plain  countenance.  He  was  afterwards  a 
bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South.  He 
held  the  office  some  years.  His  marked  persistence  in 
gaining  and  holding  the  floor,  and  his  having  his  say 
on  nearly  all  questions,  made  him  conspicuous.  One 
of  his  colleagues,  a  brilliant  man,  was  William  A. 
Smith.     His  fervid  eloquence,  and  bold,  almost  reck- 


PERSONNEL    OF  THE  DELEGATIONS.  45 

less  statements,  excited  admiration.  They  utterly 
failed  to  move  the  solid  North  from  their  convictions. 

Among  the  many  celebrities  in  that  memorable  as- 
sembly who  personally  impressed  me,  I  name  the  fol- 
lowing, with  the  Annual  Conferences  they  represented: 
From  the  Georgia  Conference  were.  A.  B.  Longstreet, 
Ignatius  A.  Few,  and  Lovick  and  George  F.  Pierce — 
father  and  son — both  distinguished  men,  the  latter 
afterwards  a  bishop  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South. 

Of  the  ten  New  York  delegates,  four  were  strongly 
marked — Nathan  Bangs,  George  Peck,  Stephen  Olin, 
and  Peter  P.  Sandford.  Of  the  seven  from  the  Troy 
Conference,  Tobias  Spicer,  a  veteran,  and  Jesse  T. 
Peck,  for  the  first  time  a  delegate,  deserve  mention. 
Genesee  Conference  was  ably  represented  by  Gleezen 
Fillmore,  Samuel  Luckey,  and  six  others.  Silas  Com- 
fort and  D.  Holmes,  Jr.,  and  five  others,  answered 
from  old  Oneida  Conference.  William  Hunter, 
Homer  J.  Clark,  and  John  Spencer,  with  their  four  co- 
delegates,  held  up  the  credit  of  the  Pittsburg  Con- 
ference. 

Ohio  Conference  had  a  strong  delegation  of  eight — 
Charles  Elliott,  William  H.  Raper,  Joseph  M.  Trimble, 
James  B.  Finley,  Leonidas  L.  Hamline,  and  others. 
They  were  men  of  very  fine  presence.  This  Confer- 
ence was  honored  in  several  ways.  Finley  and  Trimble 
presented  the  famous  resolution  in  the  Bishop  Andrew 
case.  Finley  looked  the  grand  old  pioneer  and  chief- 
tain that  he  was.  Trimble  was  youthful  and  ruddy. 
L.  L.  Hamline  made  the  eloquent  argument  which 
carried  the  Conference  as  by  storm  to  the  adoption 
of  the  Finley-Trimble  resolution.  Philadelphia  Con- 
ference had  Levi  Scott  and  John  P.  Durbin  and  four 
others. 

Kentucky  Conference  had  Henry  B.  Bascom  and 


46        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK'. 

Hubbard  H.  Kavanaugh.  Both  of  them  afterward  be- 
came bishops  in  the  new  organization.  Tennessee 
Conference  had  Robert  Paine,  afterwards  a  Southern 
Church  bishop;  John  B.  McFerrin,  Book  Agent  and 
editor,  and  later  a  missionary  secretary ;  A.  L.  P. 
Green,  and  others.  William  Winans  and  B.  M.  Drake 
were  of  the  Mississippi  Conference. 

Prom  Baltimore  Conference,  John  A.  Collins, 
Alfred  Griffith,  and  Henry  Sheer  showed  themselves 
strong  men  and  masters  in  debate.  W.  M.  Wightman, 
William  Capers,  and  S.  Dunwoody,  from  the  South 
Carolina  Conference,  were  conspicuous.  The  two 
former  became  bishops  in  the  new  Church  organiza- 
tion. The  personalities  of  Olin,  Durbin,  George  Peck, 
Nathan  Bangs,  H.  B.  Bascom,  and  others  were 
strongly  marked.  These  gave  them  a  ready  and  wide 
recognition  as  men  of  power. 

I  can  not  distinctly  recall  the  position  in  the  audi- 
torium of  the  delegates  from  the  Mississippi  Confer- 
ence. One  of  them  greatly  and  honorably  distin- 
guished himself — William  Winans,  D.  D.  He  was  a 
native  of  Clermont  County,  Ohio.  He  had  been  many 
years  in  the  South.  He  had  taken  in  slavery  by  inocu- 
lation, as  it  were.  It  struck  in  on  him  deeply.  He 
was  intensely  and  aggressively  pro-slavery,  a  more 
vehement  and  vigorous  defender  of  the  "peculiar  in- 
stitution" than  were  those  "to  the  manner  born."  A 
wide  Byron  collar,  buttoned  at  the  throat,  and  worn 
without  cravat,  was  the  neck-dress ;  heavy  locks  of 
black,  flowing  hair,  worn  long.  His  general  dress 
was  somewhat  neglige.  His  voice  was  strong  and  ring- 
ing. I  heard  him  deliver  an  able  and  stirring  address 
on  "African  Colonization."  He  spoke  loud  and  rap- 
idly. During  the  speech  of  an  hour  his  face  was 
flushed;  the  veins  on  his  forehead  stood  out  like  whip- 


GENERAL    CONFERENCE,    1 844.  47 

cords ;  his  trumpet-tones  rang  out  to  the  remotest 
parts  of  the  great  Broadway  Tabernacle. 

A  passage  between  Drs.  G.  F.  Pierce  and  J.  T. 
Peck  will  have  flavor.  They  were  on  opposite  sides 
of  the  house,  and  of  the  question  as  well.  They  fleshed 
their  maiden  swords  on  the  engrossing  question. 
Neither  of  them  had  ever  been  a  delegate.  Dr.  Pierce 
said:  "We  have  unity  and  peace,  and  seek  it  because 
of  its  effect  on  the  connection  ;  and  I  believe  to-day  that 
if  the  New  England  Conferences  were  to  secede,  the 
rest  of  us  would  have  peace.  There  would  be  religion 
enough  left  among  us  to  live  together  as  a  band  of 
brothers."  He  also  spoke  of  New  England  as  the 
prime  source  of  all  the  difficulty,  and  that,  but  for 
her,  he  believed  the  residue  of  the  Church  would  be 
the  gainer  by  it. 

Dr.  J.  T.  Peck  said:  "The  brother  from  Georgia 
says  this  measure  will  not  save  us  from  secessions. 
We  shall  have  secession  from  New  England!  Sirs,  as 
the  name  New  England  struck  my  ear,  I  felt  a  thrill 
of  the  most  intense  interest.  But  the  reverend  gentle- 
man proceeded  to  say,  'They  are  busybodies  in  other 
men's  matters!  A  thorn  in  the  flesh!  A  messenger 
sent  to  buffet  us!'  And  alluding,  as  I  understood  him 
to  do,  to  a  certain  movement  in  New  England,  and 
certain  principles  on  which  that  movement  was  based, 
he  called  it  'the  foul  spirit  of  the  pit,  the  judgment  of 
perdition,'  etc.  .  .  .  But  my  friend  from  Georgia 
says:  'Let  New  England  go!  I  wish  in  my  heart  she 
would  secede!  And  joy  go  with  her,  for  I  am  sure  she 
will  leave  peace  behind  her/  Let  New  England  go! 
I  can  not  forget  this  exclamation.  It  vibrates  in  my 
soul  in  tones  of  grating  discord.  Why,  sir,  what  is 
New  England,  that  we  should  part  with  her  with  so 
little  reluctance?     New   England!     The   land  of  the 


48        SI  XT  V- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK'. 

Pilgrims,  the  land  of  our  venerated  fathers  in  Israel, 
the  land  of  Brodhead,  of  Merritt,  of  the  reverend 
man  at  my  side" — pointing  to  George  Pickering — "and 
a  host  of  worthies  whom  we  have  delighted  to  honor 
as  the  bulwarks  of  Methodism  in  its  early  days  of 
primitive  purity  and  peril.  Let  New  England  go? 
No,  sir,  we  can  not  so  easily  part  with  the  pioneer  land 
of  the  devoted  and  sainted  Jesse  Lee." 

When  the  heat  of  the  wordy  battle  had  passed 
away,  apologies  were  in  order  for  any  severe,  cutting 
personalities,  which,  without  intention,  might  have 
been  uttered.  Those  of  Dr.  Peck  were  profuse  and 
ample.  Pierce's  reply,  in  substance,  was,  that  he 
trusted  that  he  had  not  said  a  word  which  would  ruffle 
a  hair  on  the  head  of  his  worthy  antagonist.  When  it 
is  remembered  that  Dr.  Peck's  head  was  completely 
innocent  of  hair,  the  laugh  which  followed  this  sally 
of  Dr.  Pierce  will  be  easily  accounted  for. 

After  the  Finley-Trimble  resolution  had  been 
adopted,  and  the  time  had  come  for  the  election  of  two 
bishops,  to  the  surprise  of  very  many,  Edmund  S. 
Janes,  not  a  member  of  the  Conference,  was  elected 
bishop.  George  Peck  had  been  much  talked  of  as  the 
coming  man  for  a  bishop,  lie  had  been  editor  of  the 
Christian  Advocate  and  Journal  and  of  the  Quarterly 
Reviezv  for  several  years.  If  a  bishop  had  been  elected 
in  1840,  he  would  undoubtedly  have  gained  episcopal 
honors.  There  was  a  genuine  disappointment  at  Dr. 
Peck's  failure  to  be  elected,  and,  as  intimated,  a  sur- 
prise at  Janes's  success. 

Bishop  Janes's  accession  to  the  office  was  attrib- 
uted to  the  solid  vote  of  the  Southern  delegates,  and 
probably  some  votes  from  some  of  the  Northern  Con- 
ferences. Three  or  four  reasons  were  alleged  as  prob- 
ably causing  the  preference  for  Mr.  Janes  over  George 
Peck.    All  through  the  hot  debate  in  the  Conference, 


ELECTION  OP  BISHOP  JANES.  49 

while  Dr.  Peck  had  not  said  severe  and  pungent  things 
upon  the  question  in  hand,  yet  he  had  voted  with  the 
North  on  all  the  phases  of  the  case  as,  one  by  one,  they 
reached  the  voting  stage  and  it  was  well  understood, 
South  and  North,  that  Dr.  Peck  was  a  decided  anti- 
slavery  man,  if  not  actually  an  Abolitionist.  Mr.  Janes, 
not  being  a  member  of  the  General  Conference,  he 
antagonized  no  section  nor  party,  and  while  it  was  be- 
lieved that  Mr.  Janes  was  a  Democrat  in  his  political 
leaning,  and  that  his  sympathies  were  with  the  South 
and  her  institutions,  he  had,  during  the  winter  preced- 
ing the  General  Conference,  made  the  tour  of  the  en- 
tire South  as  financial  secretary  of  the  American  Bible 
Society;  and  so  had  visited  all  the  Southern  Confer- 
ences and  addressed  them  in  that  behalf,  and  had  also 
preached  for  them.  It  was  also  held  and  talked  in 
New  York  and  elsewhere,  at  that  time,  that  the  South 
would  secede,  and  they  were  then  preparing  and  pro- 
viding to  do  so;  and,  from  the  stand  taken  by  Bishop 
Soule,  it  was  conjectured  and  talked  that  he  would  go 
with  them,  and,  not  unlikely,  the  Southern  delegates 
hoped  that  Janes  also  would  go  with  Soule  into  their 
Church  when  it  should  be  organized. 

My  host,  Mr.  Francis  Hall,  informed  me  that  Mr. 
Janes  was  present  when  the  Conference  voted  for 
bishops.  He  sat  in  a  seat  near  the  rear  of  the  church. 
The  tellers  announced  and  counted  the  ballots  in  open 
Conference.  Mr.  Janes  kept  the  tally  for  his  own 
vote,  and  also  of  that  for  the  other  candidates.  When 
the  vote  for  him  had  reached  and  passed  the  majority 
line,  he  turned  to  Mr.  Hall,  who  sat  next  him,  and 
said,  "I  am  elected  a  bishop  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church."  Whatever  may  have  been  the  sus- 
picions of  some  and  the  hopes  of  others,  that  Bishop 
Janes  would  go  with  the  South  when  they  should 
secede,  I  never  heard  his  loyalty  to  the  Methodist 
4 


50        S I  XT  V- ONE    YEARS   OF  IT  EXE  RANT    WORK. 

Episcopal  Church  called  in  question  nor  doubted. 
Nor  did  I  ever  hear  of  his  doing  or  saying  anything 
then,  nor  since,  to  confirm  the  suspicions  expressed 
by  some  at  the  time  of  his  election,  that  the  Southern 
delegates  had  an  understanding  and  a  hope  that  he 
would  join  the  Church  South  when  it  should  be  or- 
ganized. Mr.  Hamline's  election  was  the  result  of 
his  matchless  speech,  which  carried  the  solid  anti- 
slavery  vote  of  the  Conference.  The  bishops  who 
were  present  during  the  discussion  and  decision  as 
to  Bishop  Andrew's  case,  were  Soule,  Hedding, 
Andrew,  Waugh,  and  Morris.  During  the  pendency 
of  his  case  Andrew  sat  apart  from  his  colleagues. 
He  presented  a  paper  setting  forth  his  relation  as  a 
slaveholder.  It  was  in  substance  as  follows :  Sev- 
eral years  before  an  old  lady  of  Augusta,  Ga.,  be- 
queathed to  him  a  mulatto  girl,  in  trust  that  he  should 
keep  her  until  she  was  nineteen  years  of  age,  and 
that,  with  her  consent,  he  should  then  send  her  to 
Liberia ;  and,  in  case  that  she  refused  to  go  to  Liberia, 
he  should  make  her  as  free  as  the  laws  of  Georgia 
would  admit.  She  refused  to  go  to  Liberia,  and  re- 
mained legally  his  slave,  although  he  received  no 
pecuniary  compensation  nor  advantage  from  her. 
Five  years  before  the  date  of  that  Conference,  the 
mother  of  his  wife  left  to  his  wife  a  Negro  boy,  and, 
as  his  wife  died  without  a  will,  this  boy  was  legally 
his  slave.  In  the  January  preceding  the  General  Con- 
ference the  bishop  married  his  present  wife.  She 
possessed  slaves  inherited  from  her  former  husband's 
estate,  and  belonging  to  her.  Shortly  after  marriage 
he  had  secured  them  to  her  by  a  deed  of  trust.  The 
laws  of  Georgia  did  not  admit  of  emancipation,  so 
that  he  was  a  legal  slaveholder  in  those  conditions. 

The  bishops  were,  by  resolution,  invited  to  speak 
t<>   Bishop   Andrew's   case,   if  they   should   so  desire. 


THE   GREAT  CRISIS.  5 1 

Bishop  Soule  made  a  long  speech  against  the  adverse 
action  proposed  in  reference  to  his  colleague,  as  being 
lacking  in  conservatism,  and  as  opposed  to  the  pre- 
vailing usage  of  Methodism.  Later  the  bishops  pre- 
sented a  paper  to  the  Conference,  signed  by  J.  Soule, 
E.  Hedding,  B.  Waugh,  and  Thomas  A.  Morris,  re- 
questing the  Conference  to  postpone  further  action 
in  the  case  of  Bishop  Andrew  until  the  ensuing  Gen- 
eral Conference,  and  that,  in  the  meantime,  the 
bishops  could  assign  to  Bishop  Andrew  such  work 
in  the  slave  States  as  would  not  be  objectionable  to 
them,  and  would  not  thus  offend  those  sections  of 
the  work  where  the  hostility  to  a  slaveholding  bishop 
presiding  in  a  Conference  would  not  tolerate  his 
presence. 

The  next  day  Bishop  Hedding  withdrew  his  name 
from  the  paper,  the  others  adhering  to  their  signa- 
tures. The  Conference  laid  the  bishops'  paper  on 
the  table  by  a  vote  of  95  yeas  and  84  nays. 

I  close  this  paper  with  a  brief  account  of  a  most 
delightful  recollection  I  have  of  witnessing,  while  in 
New  York  at  that  time,  the  debut  of  John  B.  Gough 
in  his  brilliant  career  of  marvelous  power  and  success 
as  a  temperance  advocate.  It  occurred  in  the  old 
Broadway  Tabernacle,  at  the  May  Anniversary  of 
the  National  Temperance  Society.  It  was  ten  o'clock 
at  night.  Edward  C.  Delevan,  Esquire,  Leonard 
Bacon,  D.  D.,  and  another,  whose  name  I  can  not 
recall,  had  held  the  vast  audience  of  perhaps  three 
thousand  souls  spellbound  by  their  burning  words. 

A  seedy-looking  young  man  was  introduced  to 
the  audience  as  John  B.  Gough.  His  name  was  un- 
known. He  had  only  been  reformed  some  three  or 
four  weeks.  He  was  thin  and  cadaverous-looking, 
and  unpromising.  From  all  parts  of  the  house  he 
was  hissed.     I  sat  in  the  gallery,  near  to  where  he 


52        SIXTY-ONE    VRARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK'. 

stood  on  the  platform.  He  took  a  firm  standing  po- 
sition, and  closed  his  lips  tightly.  I  saw  his  eyes 
flash,  as  of  a  purpose  he  would  not  relinquish.  He 
waited  until  the  hissing  ceased,  and  then  began  thus : 
"Three  weeks  ago  I  was  kneeling  on  the  new-made 
grave  of  my  wife,  murdered  by  my  intemperance.  I 
solemnly  promised  God,  that  if  he  would  give  me 
help,  I  would  mount  this  fiery  steed  of  the  appetite 
for  strong  drink,  and  I  would  draw  upon  the  power- 
ful curb-rein  until  I  brought  him  back  upon  his 
haunches."  He  suited  the  action  to  the  word  with 
such  dramatic  power  that  the  audience  cheered  him 
with  round  upon  round,  and  then  for  an  hour  he  held 
the  vast  audience  by  the  magic  of  his  fascinating  elo- 
quence, as  he  has  so  often  done  since. 

Recurring  to  that  famous  General  Conference, 
it  was  from  the  sowing  of  dragon's  teeth  on  that  oc- 
casion, from  the  muttering  of  division  and  of  Church 
separation,  that,  seventeen  years  later,  secession  oc- 
curred, and  the  battalions  of  civil  war  were  set  in 
this  fair  land.  Our  country  ran  red  with  fraternal 
blood.  Then  God  buried  human  slavery  in  the  blood- 
red  gulf  of  war,  thus  freeing  our  country  from  the 
blight  and  curse  of  human  slavery,  and  rendering  the 
Nation  homogeneous  and  united,  a  free  and  happy 
people. 

During  my  second  pastorate  in  Madison,  some 
fifty  were  added  to  the  Church. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

FROM  this  term  of  pastoral  labor  in  Madison, 
my  next  removal  was  to  Binghamton,  N.  Y., 
seventy  miles  south.  Here  were  spent  two  happy 
years.  My  father  had  preceded  me  in  this  charge, 
and  later  my  eldest  brother  succeeded  me.  And 
later  still,  on  my  return  from  Oregon,  in  1864-5, 
I  was  for  six  weeks  pastor  of  the  same  old  Henry 
Street  Church  in  Binghamton,  which  I  had  rebuilt 
during  my  first  pastorate  there.  The  name  Pearne 
seemed  a  favorite  one  in  Binghamton,  for  the  City 
Council  called  a  street  by  our  name.  Pearne  Street 
is  still  a  full  street  in  that  city.  Both  years  were 
those  of  gracious  awakening  and  outpouring. 
Many  souls  were  converted  and  added  to  the 
Church.  A  very  important  murder  trial  was  held 
in  Binghamton  during  my  pastorate.  From  my 
ability  to  write  rapidly  in  shorthand,  my  services 
were  sought  in  taking  down  the  evidence  and  the 
arguments  of  counsel,  especially  the  testimony  of 
experts  on  insanity.  The  man  was  acquitted.  The 
reason  for  this  was,  that  the  evidence  was  almost 
entirely  circumstantial,  and  the  jury  were  reluctant 
to  convict  for  capital  punishment  one  against  whom 
every  particle  of  the  evidence  was  circumstantial. 
Henry  Street  Church,  in  Binghamton,  when  I 
entered  the  charge  was  called,  derisively,  by  the 
toughs,  "the  old  Eel-pot."  It  was  nearly  square, 
very  much  like  the  four-square  city  described  in 

53 


54        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

the  revelation  of  St.  John  the  Divine.  It  was  two 
stories  high,  with  a  gallery  on  three  sides.  This, 
under  my  earnest  and  unremitting  labor,  was  trans- 
formed into  a  modern  church  of  due  proportions, 
beautiful,  comfortable,  elegant.  The  church  edifice 
was  an  education.  That  newly-modeled  church 
improved  and  elevated  the  tastes  and  spirit  of  the 
people.  It  was  before  the  days  of  the  Church  Ex- 
tension Society.  The  official  members  of  the  old 
Eel-pot  Church  had  purposely  nursed  and  incurred 
an  indebtedness  of  $250,  which  they  would  not 
pay,  that  it  might  be  used  as  a  fender  against  any 
troublesome  Church  beggar  who  might  come  to 
them  for  a  collection  for  a  needy  Church.  That 
debt  was  paid  when  I  went  into  the  repair  business. 
That  church  improvement,  costing  some  $3,000  or 
$4,000,  had  a  charming  effect  upon  the  dear  old 
Church  members.  It  was  like  life  from  the  dead. 
The  unpaid  balance  was  paid  off  on  the  day  of  dedi- 
cation. For  twenty  years  after  its  renewal,  its  walls, 
frescoed  and  beautiful,  echoed  the  songs  of  a  jubi- 
lant,, glad  people,  when  it  gave  place  to  an  elegant 
structure  of  modern  appointments,  costing  some 
$40,000  or  more.  It  is  doubted  that  I  ever  achieved 
so  much  for  the  welfare  and  life  of  a  Church,  as  I 
did  in  the  remodeling  of  the  old  Eel-pot  Church 
into  a  modern  and  lovely  church  structure.  Bing- 
hamton  can  never  fade  from  my  memory.  It  was, 
and  it  still  is,  a  hallowed  place  to  memory  dear. 

My  next  move  was  a  great  disappointment.  It 
was  intended,  doubtless,  as  a  punishment  from  my 
presiding  elder,  because  I  happened  to  differ  with 


GREAT  SUCCESS  ON   WYOMING   CIRCUIT.         55 

him.  I  was  sent  from  a  second-class  station  to 
Wyoming,  a  circuit,  almost  in  the  stage  of  collapse, 
without  a  parsonage  and  without  much  promising 
character  as  a  charge.  It  required  all  the  nerve 
and  all  the  manliness  I  could  summon  to  submit  to 
it,  and  go  to  the  place  to  which  I  was  sent.  I 
moved  my  goods,  by  pike,  seventy-five  miles,  and 
they  stood  in  the  street  twenty-four  hours,  because 
there  was  no  place  to  store  them.  At  last  we  put 
them  into  an  attic,  and  ourselves  boarded  the  whole 
year  in  the  ladies'  boarding  hall  of  the  Wyoming 
Seminary.  But  it  was  the  best  year  for  results  of 
any  in  all  my  ministerial  life  up  to  that  time. 
Never  since  have  I  had  a  richer,  riper  year,  nor  one 
more  full  of  Divine  power,  and  of  grand,  blessed 
results.  In  Wyoming,  six  miles  above  Kingston, 
the  society  seemed  to  be  in  a  moribund  condition. 
I  made  two  successive  attempts  to  hold  a  pro- 
tracted meeting,  but  both  attempts  were  utter 
failures.  In  Hartsough  Hollow,  Plymouth,  and 
Kingston  we  had  precious  revivals. 

The  fates  seemed  against  us  in  Wyoming.  I 
sent  over  the  mountains  for  Elisha  Harris,  an  ec- 
centric local  preacher.  We  entered  into  a  compact 
to  have  a  successful  revival  meeting  in  Wyoming, 
or  die.  Instead  of  dying,  we  were  the  liveliest  kind 
of  human  beings.  We  visited  from  house  to  house 
over  a  radius  of  three  miles  in  diameter.  At  length 
the  skies  gave  forth  a  sound ;  the  slain  of  the  Lord 
were  many.  For  six  weeks  the  battle  raged;  the 
work  of  God  was  mightily  revived.  In  the  whole 
circuit  three  hundred  souls  were  converted.     The 


56        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT  WORK. 

persons  converted  were  some  of  them  Deists,  Uni- 
versalists,  and  Newlights.  My  lieutenant,  Elisha 
Harris,  staid  right  by  me  and  with  me  until  our 
victory  was  won  and  housed. 

I  should  describe  him  before  narrating  a  scene 
in  which  he  very  successfully  wrought.  He  was 
entirely  unlearned.  Beyond  reading  his  Bible  and 
writing  his  name,  he  knew  and  could  do  nothing. 
But  then  he  knew  Jesus.  He  knew  the  Holy  Ghost. 
He  knew  what  salvation  meant.  He  knew  men 
too  well  to  be  deceived  in  them  or  by  them.  He 
was  small  in  stature  and  spare;  with  hatchet  face 
and  deep-sunken  black  eyes,  which  flashed  and 
blazed  like  orbs  of  fire  when  he  was  under  full  ten- 
sion. His  eyebrows  were  shaggy  and  overhang- 
ing. He  had  the  most  percussive,  piercing  shout 
I  ever  heard.  After  the  revival  was  over,  he  lin- 
gered a  few  days  in  Wyoming.  A  Universalist 
preacher  came  to  Wyoming  to  preach.  Elisha 
divined  his  mission.  He  came  to  me  to  say  that  he 
would  meet  that  vaunting  Goliath.  I  advised  him 
to  keep  away.  He  said  he  had  to  meet  him,  and 
God  would  take  care  of  results.  -When  I  found  he 
would  go,  I  advised  him  to  meet  him  with  the  Word 
of  God,  and  to  ask  God  to  keep  him  from  making 
great  mistakes.  The  man  came.  His  sermon  wTas 
a  smooth,  smart,  moral  essay.  No  one  could  tell 
what  his  distinctive  doctrine  was  from  the  sermon. 
Elisha  did  not  like  the  way  the  thing  lay.  When 
the  Universalist  preacher  was  through,  he  gave 
opportunity  for  any  who  doubted  his  positions  to 
rise  up  and  call  them  in  question.    Elisha  sat  on  the 


ELISHA    HARRIS  AND    THE    UNI VERS A  LIST.       57 

back  row  of  seats,  which  were  higher  than  the  seats 
in  front,  which  had  been  made  for  the  smaller  schol- 
ars. He  jumped  over  the  low  seats  into  the  middle 
of  the  schoolhouse  floor,  and  leaped  up  from  the 
floor,  perhaps  three  or  four  inches.  Then  he 
shouted  "Glory  to  God!"  at  the  very  top  of  his 
voice.  "I  say,  sir,"  said  he,  addressing  the  minister, 
his  eyes  flashing  fire  and  his  voice  of  piercing 
power,- "how  do  they  come  up  in  the  resurrection?" 
The  preacher  was  dazed  and  rattled.  He  did  not 
seem  to  know  what  to  say.  He  scratched  his  head, 
and  repeated:  "Come  up?  Come  up?  I  suppose 
they  get  up  as  a  man  would  get  up  out  of  a  chair.,, 
Then  EHsha  clapped  his  hands,  and  again  shouted, 
"Glory  to  God!  I  have  got  you."  EHsha  then 
said:  "You  prowling  wolf  of  hell,  you  come  here 
to  steal  back  from  God's  sheepfold  the  lambs  of 
Christ's  flock  whom  we  have  gathered,  and  you 
do  not  know  how  they  come  up  in  the  resurrec- 
tion." Then  he  read  in  John  v,  28,  29 :  "  'Marvel 
not  at  this :  for  the  hour  is  coming  in  which  all  that 
are  in  the  graves  shall  hear  his  voice,  and  shall  come 
forth ;  they  that  have  done  good,  unto  the  resurrec- 
tion of  life ;  and  they  that  have  done  evil,  unto  the 
resurrection  of  damnation  !'  And  you  do  not  know 
how  they  come  up  in  the  resurrection?"  The  min- 
ister, seizing  his  hat,  said,  "I  did  not  come  here  to  be 
insulted."  "Insulted!  insulted!"  said  Harris;  "and 
you  do  not  know  how  they  come  up  in  the  resur- 
rection!" The  man  started  for  the  door.  Elisha 
started  after  him  sans  hat  and  sans  overcoat.  The 
man  broke  into  a  trot.     EHsha  trotted  after  him, 


58        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

calling  him  a  "wolf  of  hell,"  and  telling  him  "he 
did  not  know  how  they  come  up  in  the  resurrec- 
tion !"  lie  literally  ran  the  man  out  of  town.  The 
people  were  in  sympathy  with  Harris,  for  they 
knew  him  to  be  a  conscientious,  good  man.  The 
man  never  came  back  to  look  after  his  lambs. 

One  of  the  converts  was  a  Deist.  He  had  not 
been  in  Church  for  years.  His  conversion  was  very 
marked.  He  and  his  wife  joined  the  Church.  They 
were  wealthy.  They  built  a  thirty-thousand-dollar 
church,  and  a  five-thousand-dollar  or  ten-thousand- 
dollar  parsonage.  They  sent  for  me  to  come  and 
dedicate  the  church.  He  died  a  few  years  since, 
after  a  life  of  great  usefulness.  He  was  a  very 
godly,  consecrated  man.  His  wife  also  became  an 
earnest  Christian.  They  have  given  blessed  proof 
of  the  genuineness  of  their  religion,  by  their  wise 
and  liberal  gifts  of  money  for  benevolent  and  Chris- 
tian causes. 

During  that  great  revival  in  Wyoming  Circuit, 
Elisha  Harris  and  I  visited  all  the  families,  shops, 
stores,  and  manufactories  and  places  of  resort, 
where  we  could  find  persons,  and  conversed  per- 
sonally with  all  we  met  about  their  souls  and  their 
spiritual  welfare.  Among  others,  I  visited  Payne 
Pettebone,  the  person  referred. to  above.  I  told  him 
that  I  had  called  to  have  a  conversation  with  him, 
and  as  there  were  others  present,  he  took  me  into 
his  counting-room,  and  locked  the  door.  I  said  to 
him:  "First,  I  wish  to  invite  you  to  attend  meet- 
ing. We  are  holding  special  meetings,  and  it  would 
give  me  great  pleasure  to  see  you  there."     He  re- 


A    GREAT  DAY — WONDERFUL    INTEREST,         59 

plied  that  he  had  not  for  ten  years  attended  relig- 
ions meetings,  except  at  funerals.  He  did  not  be- 
lieve in  them.  He  was  a  Deist,  he  said.  lie  be- 
lieved in  God;  but  not  in  the  Bible,  nor  in  the 
religion  of  the  Bible ;  but  he  was  open  to  conviction, 
and  he  would  read  any  books  1  would  furnish 
him  that  would  refute  his  ideas  of  Deism.  I  told 
him  I  could  bring  him  books  that  had  refuted  every 
leading  point  in  Deism;  but  there  was  a  shorter 
and  a  surer  way  to  come  to  the  truth  on  this  sub- 
ject ;  and  that  way  was  prayer.  The  God  who  had 
made  him,  if  he  approached  him  in  prayer  would 
reveal  the  truth  to  him  as  to  experimental  religion ; 
and  then  I  proposed  to  him  to  spend  a  few  min- 
utes, at  stated  times,  twice  each  day,  and  I  would 
stop  at  those  times  and  pray  specially  for  him.  It 
wTas  specified  that  he  also  was  to  kneel  down  and 
pray  at  those  stated  times.  This  was  on  Wednes- 
day. I  saw  him  no  more  until  Sunday,  when  I 
preached  to  a  full  house  on  "The  Day  of  Final 
Judgment."  I  asked  all  present  who  felt  their  need 
of  preparation  for  the  judgment-day,  and  who 
would  pledge  themselves  to  ask  God  to  prepare 
them  for  the  judgment-day,  to  rise  up,  and  indicate 
both  in  that  way.  All  in  the  audience,  including 
Mr.  Pettebone,  arose,  except  one  person.  He 
was  a  very  dissipated  man.  At  evening,  when 
I  invited  seekers  of  religion  to  come  to  the 
altar,  Mr.  Pettebone  arose,  and  said  he  was  going 
forward,  but  he  wished  first  to  make  a  statement. 
He  spoke  of  the  visit  I  made  him  on  the  Wednes- 
day before,  and  said  that  the  first  time  he  prayed 


60        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

he  was  deeply  impressed  with  a  sense  of  God's 
presence;  that  every  time  he  prayed  that  impres- 
sion deepened;  that  the  result  of  it  all  was,  he  felt 
himself  a  sinner  in  need  of  a  Savior.  Then  he  came 
forward  with  many  others,  and  the  revival  went 
forward  until  hundreds  were  saved. 

A  letter  was  received  by  me  recently  from  Rev. 
H.  W.  Van  Schoick,  one  of  my  successors  on  the 
Wyoming  Circuit,  giving  Mr.  Pettebone's  account 
of  his  own  conversion,  which  I  introduce  here : 


Coldwater,  Mich.,  April  28,  i< 

My  Dear  Doctor  Pearne, — Have  you  forgotten 
the  call  Brother  Pettebone  and  I  made  on  you  in 
Cincinnati  on  our  way  South?  We  did  not  stop  with 
you  very  long,  but  long  enough  to  recall  many  pleas- 
ant memories  of  your  pastorate  in  Wyoming,  Brother 
Pettebone's  home,  where  I,  too,  was  pastor  in  the 
early  seventies.  My  pastorate  there  was  very  pleas- 
ant and  successful,  as  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  enter 
into  your  labors  of  years  before.  William  Swetland, 
Payne  Pettebone,  Isaac  Shoemaker,  Daniel  Van 
Scoy,  Daniel  Jones,  and  others  of  great  force  of  char- 
acter, were  my  Official  Board,  having  been  converted 
under  your  ministry  there. 

Payne  Pettebone,  as  you  know,  was  a  remarkable 
man.  He  was  converted  sitting  in  his  pew  while  you 
were  preaching.  As  you  were  discussing  the  plan 
of  salvation  by  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  making  it  very 
plain  and  real,  Mr.  Pettebone  said :  "Yes,  I  see  it  as 
never  before ;  Jesus  Christ  alone  is  the  Savior  of  all 
who  receive  him.  I  receive  him.  I  receive  him  now 
as  my  Savior."  And  right  there  in  his  seat  he  re- 
ceived the  evidence,  which  never  left  him,  that  God, 


A   REMARKABLE   CONVERSION.  6 1 

for  Christ's  sake,  had  forgiven  his  sins.  What  a 
glorious  history  he  made  for  the  Church  of  his  choice ! 
Sincere,  conscientious,  tried  and  true,  a  wonderfully 
successful  business  man,  his  thousands,  and  even 
millions,  were  all  laid  at  the  feet  of  the  Master;  and 
how  much  good  he  did  by  his  gifts  to  Wyoming  Semi- 
nary, Wresleyan  University,  Drew  Seminary,  and  to 
hundreds  of  struggling  Churches,  eternity  alone  will 
reveal.  He  and  his  wife  gave  the  beautiful  church 
at  Wyoming  as  a  thank-offering  to  the  Lord  for  the 
prosperity  with  which  he  had  favored  them.  His 
father-in-law,  William  Swetland,  died  before  I  became 
pastor  at  Wyoming,  but  his  memory  of  good  deeds  was 
as  ointment  poured  forth.  Mrs.  Pettebone,  William 
Swetland's  daughter,  still  lives,  and,  if  anything,  goes 
even  beyond  her  father  and  husband  in  the  munifi- 
cence of  her  giving,  having  just  presented  to  Wyom- 
ing Seminary  a  gymnasium,  complete,  at  a  cost  of 
over  thirty  thousand  dollars.  How  little  you  knew, 
when  you  won  William  Swetland  and  Payne  Pette- 
bone to  the  Church,  what  you  were  doing  for  Meth- 
odism and  for  the  world ! 

And  Daniel  Jones,  one  of  the  most  useful  men 
in  that  Church, — have  you  forgotten  how  you  cap- 
tured him?  He  had  the  elements  of  a  great  char- 
acter, but  was  emphatically  a  man  of  the  world.  Be- 
fore you  came  he  did  not  attend  Church  at  all.  But 
you  had  a  way  of  reading  men,  and  said,  ''There  is 
a  man  who  will  be  a  power  in  the  Church  if  I  can 
once  win  him."  So,  in  a  wise  way,  you  set  about 
it.  He  was  very  fond  of  a  horse,  and,  as  you  saw 
him  driving  past  the  parsonage  nearly  every  day, 
evidently  watching  his  horse  with  admiration,  you 
said,  "I  think  I  have  discovered  the  way  to  that  man's 
heart."  One  morning,  seeing  him  start  toward 
Kingston,   you   found    it   convenient,   an   hour   or   so 


62        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

after,  to  take  a  long  walk  in  the  same  direction. 
Observing  him  returning  far  down  the  road,  you 
turned  about,  and  trod  your  weary  way  toward  home. 
Your  walk  indicated  that  you  were  very  tired.  You 
were  red  in  the  face.  You  were  wiping  the  perspira- 
tion from  your  brow.  As  he  came  near  he  could  not 
fail  to  see  how  fatigued  you  were,  and,  as  a  man  of 
generous  impulse  would  be  supposed  to  do  under 
like  circumstances,  invited  you  to  ride.  Of  course 
you  accepted,  and  quickly  turned  the  conversation 
to  the  subject  of  horses.  You  saw  that  he  was  fond 
of  a  horse,  and  remarked  that  you,  too,  loved  a  horse, 
and  were  so  pleased  to  ride  behind  such  a  noble 
animal  as  his — did  n't  know  when  you  had  had  such 
a  treat.  All  the  way  to  Wyoming  you  conversed  on 
the  good  points  of  that  horse,  not  even  mentioning 
religion  to  him.  When  he  drew  up  in  front  of  your 
house,  you  said,  as  you  were  getting  out  of  the  buggy, 
"How  much  I  have  enjoyed  my  ride  and  my  chat  with 
you !  I  do  n't  know  how  I  can  repay  you,  unless 
you  take  it  out  in  preaching.  By  the  way,  I  do  n't 
remember  seeing  you  at  Church  since  I  came." 
"Well,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  I  have  n't  been  to  the 
Church  in  years,  but  I  think  I  must  drop  in  and 
hear  you,"  was  his  reply.  He  did  "drop  in,"  and 
not  many  weeks  afterward  was  converted,  and  soon 
became  one  of  the  useful  officiaries  of  that  Church. 

I  rejoice  that  it  has  been  my  pleasure  to  know 
you.  I  have  watched  your  work  with  delighted  in- 
terest, and  am  so  thankful  that,  after  such  a  long 
term  in  the  ministry,  both  in  the  pastorate  and  pre- 
siding eldership,  your  eye  is  not  dim,  your  natural 
force  is  not  abated,  and  you  are  still  abundant  in 
labors  and  in  honors.  God  bless  you ! 
Very  cordially  yours, 

R.  W.  Van  Schoick. 


CHAPTER  V. 

WHILE  upon  the  Wyoming  Circuit  I  gath- 
ered up  the  items  about  Bishops  Asbury 
and  McKendree  which  follow,  and  to  these  I  sub- 
join a  legend  of  Asbury  in  Tennessee,  from  an  eye- 
witness, which  enhances  the  value  of  the  incident. 
In  addition,  I  furnish  the  proof  of  Mrs.  Denison's 
correctness  in  my  narrative  of  her. 

FRANCIS  ASBURY-PERSONAL  REMINISCENCES. 

My  father's  library,  during  my  boyhood,  contained 
the  standard  Methodist  books — Wesley,  Watson, 
Fletcher,  and  especially  Asbury's  Journal.  The  last, 
and  Wesley's  Journal,  were  eagerly  devoured  by  me 
for  the  adventures  they  recorded.  No  work  of  fiction 
ever  so  absorbed  me,  nor  was  equally  interesting  to 
me,  as  these  Journals.  Asbury's  Journal  filled  me 
with  the  highest  admiration  for  the  first  American 
bishop  and  his  marvelous  heroism  as  a  pioneer.  I 
often  wondered  whether  I  should  ever,  in  any  con- 
siderable measure,  equal  his  privations  and  the  ad- 
venturous incidents  through  which  he  so  bravely  and 
cheerfully  passed.  And  yet  I  myself  have  been  in 
perils  of  waters  and  perils  of  robbers  as  exciting  as 
those  he  records. 

In  my  five  years  of  itinerant  labor  in  East  Ten- 
nessee, I  have  preached  and  held  quarterly-meetings 
at  the  eastern  base  of  the  Cumberland  Mountains, 
at  a  place  called  Bean  Station,  where  Mr.  Asbury 
and  his  comrades  were  accustomed  to  wait  until  a 
sufficient  number  of  travelers  would  gather  to  enable 

63 


64        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

them  safely  to  cross  the  Cumberland  Gap  into  Ken- 
tucky. The  legends  of  his  sojourns  at  the  station 
were  current  when  I  traveled  the  Knoxville  District, 
in  1865  and  later. 

When,  in  my  early  teens,  I  became  a  traveling 
minister,  sixty  years  ago,  I  listened  to  the  folk-lore 
of  the  elder  Methodists  in  my  charges  about  the 
movements  of  the  earlier  leaders  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church.  But  I  was  always  specially  at- 
tentive to  those  which  related  to  the  grandest  hero 
of  them  all.  I  record  in  this  paper  two  legends  of 
the  pioneer  bishop,  which  have  never  been  published. 
In  1847,  1848,  and  1849,  I  traveled  the  first  of  those 
vears  the  Wyoming  Circuit  in  Pennsylvania,  and  the 
last  two  in  Wilkesbarre.  Wyoming  Circuit  included 
all  the  west  side  of  the  classic  American  ground, 
called  the  Wyoming  Valley,  which  the  pen  of  Camp- 
bell has  immortalized  in  his  "Gertrude  of  Wyoming." 
On  the  circuit,  near  New  Troy,  as  it  was  then  called — 
Wyoming  as  more  recently  known — lived  the  widow 
Elizabeth  Denison,  a  lady  of  more  than  fourscore 
years,  who  still  retained  her  mental  powers  in  full 
vigor.  She  was  a  daughter-in-law  of  Colonel  Nathan 
Denison,  a  colonel  in  the  Revolutionary  army,  de- 
tailed at  the  time  of  the  Wyoming  massacre  in  the 
Wyoming  Valley.  July  3,  1783,  Colonel  Denison  and 
Colonel  Zebulon  Butler  led  the  forces  of  the  volunteers 
out  from  Forty  Fort,  near  the  middle  of  the  valley 
north  and  south,  to  the  bloody  holocaust  which  over- 
took them,  as  the  result  of  an  ambuscade  into  which 
they  were  decoyed  by  the  apparent  retreating  of  the 
Indian  and  English  troops,  until  those  enemies  had 
surrounded  them  and  slain  them  in  cold  blood.  Of 
two  hundred  and  thirty  persons,  mostly  boys  and 
young  men,  and  quite  old  men  in  that  forward  move- 
ment,  one   hundred   and   seventy   were  ,slain.      Only 


BISHOP  ASBURY  IN   WYOMING.  65 

fifty  escaped.  Mrs.  Denison,  who  was  a  member  of 
my  Church  in  New  Troy,  and  who  was  a  girl  of  only 
eight  years  when  the  massacre  occurred,  would  nar- 
rate to  me  the  thrilling  events  of  those  perilous  times. 
The  monument  commemorating  those  scenes  stands 
just  below  New  Troy.  Among  other  incidents,  she 
related  to  me  the  particulars  of  a  prolonged  visit  to 
her  home,  made  by  Bishops  Asbury  and  McKendree * 
She  was  at  the  time  a  young  bride,  having  married 
the  son  of  Colonel  Denison.  The  two  bishops  had 
called  there  for  a  stay  of  some  days. 

Asbury's  Journal  records  three  visits  which  he 
made  to  Wyoming.  The  first  one  he  mentions,  oc- 
curred July  2,  4,  7,  1793.  He  makes  these  notes  on 
that  visit : 

"July  2 — After  preaching  at  Sunbury,  June  28th, 
on  'The  Grace  of  God,  which  appeareth  unto  all  men/ 


*  An  article  in  the  Northern  Christian  Advocate,  April  13, 
1898,  enables  me  to  fix  the  approximate  date  of  this  visit  of 
Asbury  and  McKendree  in  1814.  The  article  is  illustrated  by 
a  cut  of  the  barn  in  which  Asbury  preached  on  that  occasion. 
The  text  from  which  Bishop  Asbury  preached  is  given.  This 
short  article  is  of  historic  value : 

"Barn  in  which  Asbury  Preached  About  the  Year  1814. 

"About  the  year  1814,  Bishop  Asbury,  accompanied  by 
Bishop  McKendree,  passed  through  Brooklyn,  Pa.,  when  on 
their  way  from  a  Northern  Conference  to  the  Baltimore  Confer- 
ence. They  tarried  long  enough  to  hold  a  service  in  Brooklyn 
in  a  barn,  an  excellent  cut  of  which  is  herewith  given.  The 
text  from  which  Bishop  Asbury  preached  was  I  Sam.  xv,  14 : 
'And  Samuel  said,  What  meaneth  then  this  bleating  of  the 
sheep  in  mine  ears,  and  the  lowing  of  the  oxen  which  I 
hear?' 

"That  the  cut  represents  the  identical  barn  in  which  the 
sermon  was  preached  is  fully  authenticated,  though  it  does 
not  now  occupy  the  same  site  that  it  did  at  that  time.  Many 
years  ago  it  was  moved  to  the  place  it  now  occupies,  and  the 

5 


66        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

we  wrought  up  the  hills  and  narrows  to  Wyoming. 
We  stopped  at  a  poor  house ;  nevertheless,  they  were 
rich  enough  to  sell  us  a  bushel  of  oats ;  and  they  had 
sense  enough  to  make  us  pay  well  for  them.  We 
reached  Mr.  P/s  at  about  eleven  o'clock  P.  M.  I 
found  riding  in  the  night  caused  a  return  of  my 
rheumatic  complaint  through  my  breast  and  shoul- 
ders.   But  all  is  well.    The  Lord  is  with  us." 

"Thursday,  4th — Being  the  anniversary  of  the 
American  Independence,  there  was  a  great  noise 
among  the  sinners.  A  few  of  us  went  down  to 
Shawanee  (Plymouth),  called  a  few  people  together 
from  their  work,  and  found  it  good  for  us  to  be  there." 

"Sunday,  July  7th — The  Lord  has  spoken  in  awful 
peals  of  thunder.  O  what  havoc  was  made  there  fifteen 
years  ago!     [This  was  obviously  a  mistake,  or  a  slip 


addition  on  the  right  was  constructed.  The  large  open  doors 
show  the  audience-room  in  which  the  service  was  held. 

"  In  1888  Edward  I,.  Paine,  son  of  the  Rev.  Edward  Paine, 
who  owned  the  barn,  was  a  lay  delegate  to  the  General  Con- 
ference from  Wisconsin  Conference,  and  was  the  oldest  lay- 
man of  that  body,  being  eighty-seven  years  of  age.  He 
stated  on  the  floor  of  the  Conference  that  he  heard  Bishop 
Asbury  preach  the  sermon  to  which  reference  is  made  above, 
and  on  that  occasion,  which  was  a  memorable  one,  though 
only  thirteen  years  of  age,  he  gave  his  heart  to  God  and  his 
hand  to  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  of  which  he  re- 
mained a  faithful  member  until  the  day  of  his  death. 

"For  the  picture  of  the  barn  and  the  portrait  of  Mr. 
Paine  we  are  indebted  to  the  Rev.  G.  E.  Van  Woert,  pastor  of 
our  Church  in  Brooklyn,  Pa.,  who  will  furnish  excellent  pho- 
tographs of  the  barn  in  two  sizes;  the  larger,  shown  in  the 
cut,  for  thirty-five  cents,  and  the  smaller  for  twenty-five 
cents.  Brother  Van  Woert  devotes  one-half  the  profits  of 
sales  within  his  charge,  and  all  the  profits  of  sales  outside,  to 
the  payment  of  the  debt  on  the  Missionary  Society.  The  pic- 
ture is  worth  preserving  for  its  historic  associations.  Send 
orders  to  Brother  Van  Woert." 


ASBURY  AND  M' KENDREE.  6 J 

of  the  pen,  for  the  scene  to  which  he  refers  was  the 
Wyoming  massacre  of  July  3,  1783,  ten  years  before.] 
Most  of  the  inhabitants  were  either  cut  off  or  driven 
away.  The  people  might  have  clothed  themselves  in 
sackcloth  and  ashes  on  the  3d,  if  in  white  and  glory 
on  the  4th  of  July.  The  inhabitants  here  are  very 
wicked,  but  I  feel  as  though  the  Lord  would  return." 

The  bishop  must  have  staid  in  the  valley  until 
the  8th,  when  he  started  up  the  Lackawanna  over  the 
twelve-mile  swamp.  On  this  trip  he  must  have  trav- 
eled alone,  as  there  is  no  account  of  his  having  had 
a  traveling  companion  until  later  in  life. 

The  second  visit  he  made  to  Wyoming  was  July 
17,  1807.    He  says  in  his  entry  of  that  date: 

"Once  more  I  am  in  Wyoming.  We  have  wearied 
through,  and  clambered  over,  one  hundred  miles  of 
the  rough  roads  of  wild  Susquehanna!  O  the  pre- 
cipitous banks,  wedging  narrows,  rocks,  sidelong 
bills,  obstructed  paths  and  fords — scarcely  fordable — 
roots,  stumps,  and  gullies !" 

Two  days  later  he  speaks  of  ordaining  Thomas 
and  Christian  Bowman,  who  were  probably  ancestral 
relations  of  our  venerable  senior  bishop,  who  was 
born  and  reared  near  Berwick  on  the  Susquehanna, 
twenty  miles  below  Wyoming  Valley.  The  next 
visit  to  Wyoming  which  he  mentions,  is  in  1812: 

"August  4th — We  arrived  at  Father  Bidlack's,  and 
went  forward  to  Wilkesbarre.  [Father  Bidlack  was 
a  Revolutionary  soldier  and  a  Methodist  traveling 
preacher,  who  lived  across  the  river  from  Wilkesbarre, 
at  Kingston,  and  a  mile  distant.]  The  court  was  sit- 
ting, and  a  sermon  was  expected.  My  subject  was, 
'Knowing  the  terror  of  the  Lord,  we  persuade  men/ 
They  gave  me  the  court-room. 

"August  5th — We  came  along  down  by  the  turn- 
pike,  and   rough   enough   we  found   it.      Farewell   to 


68        SIXTY- ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

Merwine's.  I  lodge  no  more  there,  whisky-hell,  as 
most  of  the  taverns  here  are.  .  .  .  We  lodge 
with  George  Custer,  Wyoming." 

"Friday,  7th — I  am  still.  I  abstain.  In  the  even- 
ing we  had  an  assemblage  of  people,  and  Brother 
Boehm  spoke  to  them  in  German." 

Henry  Boehm  was  at  this  time  Bishop  Asbury's 
traveling  companion.  He  was  nearly  one  hundred 
years  old,  erect,  and  well  preserved  when  I  last  saw 
him.  He  was  present  at  the  dedication  of  the  Metro- 
politan Church  in  Washington  in  the  sixties,  and  took 
part  in  the  services — pronounced  the  benediction  or 
offered  a  prayer. 

It  is  quite  evident  that  neither  of  these  three  visits 
to  Wyoming  was  the  one  detailed  to  me  by  Mrs. 
Denison,  because  Bishop  McKendree  was  not  with 
Bishop  Asbury  at  either  of  these  visits,  and  this  is 
apparent  from  the  journal  of  the  bishop.  Asbury  was 
less  regular  and  careful  in  his  Journal  as  he  ap- 
proached the  end  of  life,  and  he  may  have  been  too 
feeble  to  journalize  that  last  visit,  which  must  have 
been  made  between  1812  and  181 5,  the  year  in  which 
he  died,  March  31st. 

Mrs.  Denison  said  to  me  that  Bishop  Asbury  was 
smaller  in  stature  than  Bishop  McKendree,  that  he 
was  a  great  sufferer  from  the  infimities  of  age  and 
from  his  lifelong  infirmity,  the  rheumatism.  He  was 
neither  petulant  nor  brusque ;  yet  he  was  somewhat 
abstract,  taciturn,  and  reserved.  He  seemed  at  that 
time  to  live  apart,  and  to  commune  with  himself. 
Bishop  McKendree  was  gentle,  affable,  and  free  in 
his  conversation,  and  very  full  of  wisdom  and  instruc- 
tion in  his  communications.  Bishop  Asbury  was  thin 
and  weak  from  his  long  and  severe  journeyings  and 
from  his  great  sufferings.  Bishop  McKendree  was  of 
full  habit,  apparently  in   perfect  health,  exceedingly 


ASBURY  AND  M] '  KEN  DREE.  69 

approachable,  putting  his  associates  completely  at 
their  ease.  He  was  well  informed ;  a  good  converser, 
drawing  those  in  his  company  to  himself  by  an  irre- 
sistible fascination  of  manners,  and  by  a  most  mag- 
netic personality. 

Colonel  Denison,  who,  at  the  time  of  the  visit  of 
these  two  bishops,  was  himself  well  stricken  in  years, 
was  greatly  charmed  and  delighted  with  Bishop 
McKendree.  He  said  that  the  bishop  was  so  well 
posted  in  all  matters  that  he  would  elicit  admiration 
in  any  official  public  position  he  might  have  held. 
"Indeed,"  said  the  colonel  to  Mrs.  Denison,  "Bishop 
McKendree  is  well-fitted  to  have  been  a  United  States 
senator.    He  would  have  graced  the  position." 

Mrs.  Denison  said  to  me  that  Bishop  Asbury  im- 
pressed all  who  saw  him  as  being  a  very  devout, 
earnest,  and  godly  man,  who  walked  in  close  fellow- 
ship with  God. 

Bishops  Asbury  and  McKendree  were  scarcely 
ever  absent  from  the  Annual  Conferences.  I  read 
of  but  two  instances  in  the  West  where  the  Confer- 
ence was  presided  over  by  any  one  but  the  bishops. 
William  Burke  once  presided  in  the  absence  of  both 
the  bishops.  In  the  Ohio  Conference,  which  met  in 
Cincinnati  in  1814,  both  the  bishops,  Asbury  and 
McKendree,  were  present.  But  Asbury  was  too  ill 
to  preside,  and  McKendree  had  been  injured  by  a 
fall  from  his  horse,  and  John  Sale  was  appointed  by 
the  bishops  to  preside.     In  his  Journal,  Asbury  says : 

"Monday,  5th  (September)— I  made  an  attempt 
to  speak  a  few  words  from  Philippians  ii,  2-5.  We 
have  progressed  in  our  business  very  well,  though 
deprived  of  the  presence  of  the  bishops  to  pre- 
side. .  .  .  John  Sale  presided  with  great  pro- 
priety. John  Sale  finished  the  plan  of  the  stations 
from  a  general  draft  I  furnished  him.    We  closed  our 


70        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

labors  in  peace.  One  thing  I  remark,  our  Confer- 
ences are  now  out  of  their  infancy.  Their  rulers  can 
now  be  called  from  among  themselves.    .    .    .   " 

From  1865  to  1868  I  was  presiding  elder  on  the 
Knoxville  District  in  East  Tennessee.  During  this 
term  I  learned  several  incidents  about  Bishop  Asbury 
from  those  who  had  been  eye  and  ear  witnesses  of  the 
events  described.  I  give  but  one  of  them,  as  this 
gives  a  good,  general  idea  of  the  bishop's  habit  in 
his  annual  tours  over  the  continent,  always  by  private 
conveyance,  "and  always  sharing  the  hospitality  of  the 
pioneers,  which  was  accorded  to  him  with  a  regal 
largeness,  freedom,  and  munificence.  On  one  of  my 
tours  near  Dandridge  I  formed  the  acquaintance  of 
a  gentleman  who  lived  there,  and  who  was  then  a 
person  of  seventy  years  or  more.  He  said  that  one 
morning,  when  he  was  quite  a  young  man,  he  was 
going  out  through  the  gate  which  opened  into  his 
father's  extensive  estate,  and  upon  which  his  father 
was  yet  living,  when  he  met  an  aged  man  who  had 
just  driven  up  to  the  gate  in  a  light  carriage.  The 
stranger  informed  him  that  he  was  Bishop  Asbury, 
and  he  was  just  about  driving  in  to  spend  the  day 
and  night  with  the  young  man's  father.  The  bishop 
inquired  whether  the  young  man's  father  still  lived 
there,  and,  learning  that  he  did,  the  bishop  said: 
"Then  I  will  go  in,  and  stay  with  him  for  the  day 
and  night."  A  young  man  accompanied  the  bishop, 
whose  name  I  have  forgotten,  said  my  informant. 
This  young  man  was  John  Wesley  Bond,  father  of 
the  distinguished  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  E.  Bond,  who,  at 
a  later  period,  was  editor  of  the  Christian  Advocate, 
New  York.  My  informant  said :  "I  went  back  with 
them.  It  was  arranged  to  have  preaching  at  our 
house   that   evening.     I   was   sent   out   through   the 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BISHOP  ASBURY'S  LIFE.       7 1 

neighborhood  to  give  notice  of  the  meeting,  and  to 
invite  the  neighbors  to  attend  it.  A  large  number  of 
people  assembled.  The  young  man  preached.  Mr. 
Asbury  had  retired.  The  bed  was  curtained  in  the 
old-fashioned  way,  with  high  curtains  and  a  canopy. 
At  the  close  of  the  sermon,  the  bishop  said:  Tlease 
draw  the  curtains.'  The  bishop  sat  up  in  the  bed, 
and  talked  at  some  length  with  much  freedom,  pathos, 
and  power.  'The  people/  said  he,  'are  hungry  for  the 
Word  of  God.  It  should  be  dealt  out  to  them  in 
plain,  simple,  and  loving  speech.  The  gospel  needs 
no  flowers  of  rhetoric,  no  word-drapery.  It  is  God's 
message  of  love  and  peace  to  a  fallen  world  and  to 
a  perishing  race.  The  message  should  be  direct,  clear, 
urgent.'  He  then  exhorted  the  people  in  a  most  ten- 
der, pathetic,  urgent  manner  to  seek  God,  and  to 
prepare  for  eternity.  'This/  said  he,  'is  probably  the 
last  time  I  shall  ever  be  with  you  on  earth.  O,  will 
you  not  be  entreated  to  be  reconciled  to  God?  Shall 
we  sit  down  together  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  to  go 
out  no  more  forever?'  There  was  a  general  time  of 
weeping  and  shouting.  All  seemed  deeply  affected 
by  the  kindly,  tender,  persuasive  words  of  the  bishop." 
This  was  his  last  visit  in  that  State.  On  Sabbath,  March 
31,  1 816,  he  passed  through  the  gates  into  the  ever- 
lasting city  of  God.  This  visit  is  recorded  in  Asbury's 
Journal.  It  occurred  in  October,  1814,  and  it  is  thus 
related  in  two  or  three  lines : 

"Monday,  17th — We  came  rapidly  through  Dan- 
dridge  to  William  Turnley's.  Here  are  kind  souls. 
I  was  sick,  and  soon  in  bed ;  but  John  Bond  preached 
for  them." 

The  foregoing  reminiscences  are  published  in  this 
form  by  the  Cincinnati  Conference  Historical  Society, 
with  the  permission  of  the   Conference  itself.     The 


72        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

following  incident  anent  Bishop  Asbury  in  New  York, 
is  furnished  by  the  late  Asbury  Lowrey,  D.  D.  It  is, 
of  course,  authentic : 

"Richard  Goodwin,  a  relative  of  my  father,  was  a 
local  preacher,  living  at  Goodwin's  Point,  Cayuga 
Lake,  New  York.  He  was  elected  to  elder's  orders, 
probably  at  some  Conference  when  he  could  not  be 
present.  He  afterwards  met  Bishop  Asbury  on  the 
road  somewhere.  The  facts  being  made  known  to 
him,  Bishop  Asbury  dismounted  and  ordained  him  an 
elder,  under  a  tree.  Whether  there  were  three  elders, 
or  none,  to  lay  hands  on  the  head  of  Goodwin,  with 
the  bishop's,  I  am  not  informed.  The  stream  of  apos- 
tolic succession  doubtless  forms  many  eddies  as  it 
comes  down  to  us  from  Wesley  and  Asbury. 

"A.  Lowrsy. 

"P.  S. — Richard  Goodwin  was  the  father  of  the 
Rev.  William  H.  Goodwin,  D.  D.,  of  East  Genesee 
Conference,  of  whom,  perhaps,  you  have  some 
knowledge." 

The  next  two  years  I  was  pastor  of  the  First 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  Wilkesbarre,  then 
and  now  one  of  the  richest  and  strongest  Churches 
of  Methodism.  It  was  then  the  best  charge  in  the 
old  Oneida  Conference.  My  compensation  had 
come  in  double  measure  and  form,  for  what  I  had 
supposed  to  be  a  punishment  from  my  presiding 
elder.  We  built  a  twenty-thousand-dollar  church 
the  first  year  of  my  Wilkesbarre  pastorate.  It  will 
assist  in  understanding  the  financial  conditions  of 
such  charges  in  those  earlier  times,  when  the  facts 
are  stated.  The  parsonage  was  a  small,  humble 
dwelling,  which  could  then  have  been  built  for  six 


THE    OLD   AND    THE   NEW.  73 

hundred  dollars  or  seven  hundred  dollars.  The  sal- 
ary, all  told,  was  four  hundred  dollars  a  year  and 
the  parsonage.  This  was  the  most  they  had  ever 
paid.  A  one-hundred-and-thirty-thousand-dollar 
church  has  replaced  the  brick  twenty-thousand- 
dollar  one  of  forty-eight  years  ago ;  an  organ,  cost- 
ing thirty  thousand  dollars,  is  its  latest  acquisition, 
and  a  parsonage  worth  ten  thousand  dollars  or 
more  has  succeeded  the  humble  six-hundred-dollar 
house  in  which  I  and  the  men  who  preceded  me 
had  lived.  Many  were  added  to  the  Church  by  pro- 
fession during  my  pastorate  in  Wilkesbarre.  The 
last  month  of  my  stay  here  my  wife  was  very  ill  with 
the  typhoid  fever.  She  became  well  enough  for 
me  to  remove  her  to  her  sister's,  in  Madison,  N.  Y., 
one  hundred  and  forty  miles  away,  while  I  should 
attend  Conference. 

I  was  appointed  from  Wilkesbarre  to  Owego, 
in  New  York  State.  I  moved  my  goods  to  Owego 
on  wagons,  seventy  miles.  I  set  up  the  furniture 
in  the  parsonage,  and  put  down  the  carpets,  and 
then  I  went  up  seventy  miles  to  Madison,  to  re- 
move my  wife  to  my  new  charge.  She  was  too  ill 
to  be  moved,  for  she  had  had  a  relapse.  On  Satur- 
day I  returned  from  Madison  to  Owego,  and  slept 
in  the  parsonage.  On  Sunday  morning  I  woke  up 
with  a  splitting  headache.  I  was  unable  to  eat. 
But  I  took  a  strong  dose  of  pepper-tea,  and  went 
into  the  pulpit  to  preach  my  opening  sermon  for 
the  year.  A  high  fever  was  on  me.  I  soon  be- 
came delirious.  I  preached  on  incoherently.  The 
brethren  took  me  out  of  the  pulpit,  and  put  me  in 


74        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

bed,  a  victim  of  typhoid  fever,  as  it  proved  to  be. 
I  lay  forty-two  days  in  a  state  of  coma;  and  as  I 
got  better  of  the  fever  I  was  seized  with  pneumonia, 
and  came  very  near  dying.  The  year  was  a  broken 
one.  And  yet  we  had  a  good  degree  of  success. 
About  forty  or  fifty  professed  conversion.  This 
was  my  last  charge  in  the  old  Oneida  Conference. 
The  Conference  met  in  1850  at  Honesdale,  Pa. 
I  was  appointed,  by  request  of  my  host,  a  New- 
light  preacher,  to  preach  in  his  church.  I  -had 
ascertained  that  the  Church  was  Arian  in  belief — 
denying  the  Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  depravity 
of  men,  the  personality  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the 
conversion  of  sinners  by  the  washing  of  regener- 
ation and  the  renewing  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  My 
character  had  passed  as  approved  on  Thursday.  I 
went  to  the  Newlight,  or  so-called  Christian, 
church  to  preach.  I  said  to  myself:  "This  is  your 
last  and  only  opportunity  to  free  your  skirts  from 
their  blood,  by  openly  opposing  and  exposing  their 
doctrinal  errors,  and  warning  them  faithfully  of 
their  delusions."  My  text  was  Deuteronomy  xi, 
16:  "Take  heed  to  yourselves  that  your  heart  be 
not  deceived,  and  ye  turn  aside  after  other  gods, 
to  serve  them  and  worship  them."  I  dwelt  upon 
heart  deceptions  as  the  most  alarming.  I  instanced 
names  and  doctrines  as  being  well  adapted  to  mis- 
lead the  unwary,  and  then  said:  "You  call  your- 
selves Christians,  implying  that  you  have  a  right 
to  that  name  over  your  fellow-Christians  of  other 
names  and  denominations ;  and  while  deceiving  by 


ORDAINED   DEACON  AND  ELDER.  75 

bearing-,  as  exclusive,  a  name  common  to  all  Chris- 
tians, at  the  same  time,  by  your  denial  of  the  Divin- 
ity of  Christ  and  his  atoning  sacrifice,  you  crucify 
the  Son  of  God  afresh,  and  put  him  to  an  open 
shame."  The  next  morning  my  character  was 
arrested,  the  first  and  only  time  in  my  life,  for  vio- 
lating Christian  courtesy.  The  case  was  tried,  and 
then  the  Conference  passed  my  character,  and  the 
affair  ended. 

I  was  ordained  a  deacon  in  1841,  in  Owego, 
New  York,  by  Bishop  Joshua  Soule,  having  con- 
cluded my  two  years  of  probation  in  the  Confer- 
ence, and  having  creditably  passed  through  my 
Conference  examination. 

In  1843  I  was  ordained  an  elder  by  Bishop 
Beverly  Waugh,  in  Wilkesbarre,  Pa.  The  occa- 
sion was  one  of  great  solemnity  and  much  prayer. 
The  ordination  took  place  in  a  grove.  There  was 
no  church  that  would  hold  half  the  people  who 
came  out  to  the  services.  The  sermon  was 
preached  by  John  McClintock,  D.  D.,  one  of  the 
most  cyclopedic  scholars  in  the  entire  Church,  if 
not  in  the  whole  land. 

In  the  Conference,  after  my  first  year  of 
probationary  Conference  life  had  passed,  Bishop 
Robert  R.  Roberts  presided.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  noble  and  manly-looking  of  men,  and  withal 
very  saintly  in  countenance  and  appearance.  He 
preached  from  Luke  xvi,  31:  "If  they  hear  not 
Moses  and  the  prophets,  neither  will  they  be  per- 
suaded, though  one  rose  from  the  dead,"     In  the 


76        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

course  of  his  sermon,  he  said,  instead  of  persuading 
men  to  turn  to  God,  a  spirit  from  the  dead  would 
terrify  them,  and  cause 

"Each  particular  hair  to  stand  on  end, 
Like  quills  upon  the  fretful  porcupine." 

This  quotation  from  Shakespeare  quite  won  me, 
for  I  was  a  great  admirer  of  the  English  poet  of 
Stratford-on-Avon.  The  congregation  was  deeply 
moved  under  the  sermon. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

INCLUDING  my  two  years  of  supply  work  be- 
fore joining  the  Conference,  and  the  time  I 
spent  as  a  probationer  and  a  member  of  the  Oneida 
Conference,  there  were  fourteen  years  of  service. 
As  I  re-traverse  in  thought  the  well-remembered 
scenes  and  associations  of  those  early  years,  the 
recollection  affords  me  great  satisfaction,  and  I  am 
led  to  exclaim  in  gratitude  to  God, 

"In  each  event  of  life,  how  clear, 
Thy  ruling  hand  I  see  ! 
Each  blessing  to  my  soul  most  dear, 
Because  bestowed  by  Thee." 

In  the  work  of  the  ministry,  to  which  my  call 
had  been  strong  and  unmistakable,  I  had  a  glow, 
an  inspiration,  and  a  joy  exquisitely  delightful. 
The  call  I  could  not  resist  if  I  would,  and  I  would 
not  if  I  could.  While  I  was  deeply  conscious  of 
the  weakness  and  slenderness  of  my  resources — 
educational  and  otherwise — still  there  was  a  charm 
in  my  loved  work  which  was  wonderfully  fasci- 
nating. 

One  of  the  supremest  pleasures  of  my  life  has 
been  the  abiding  conviction  that  I  was  in  God's 
hands,  as  an  instrument  of  blessing  to  men  and  of 
glory  to  God.     In  this  feeling  there  was  a  singular 

77 


78        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

freedom  from  care  and  doubt  and  uncertainty,  and 
from  all  concern  and  anxiety.     Happy  as  the  lark, 

"  My  life  flowed  on  in  endless  song  ; 
Above  earth's  lamentation 
I  caught  the  sweet  though  far-off  strain, 
That  hails  the  new  creation." 

The  spring  season  answered  to  a  springtime  in 
my  soul,  day  by  day.  The  summer  was  sweet  and 
gentle  and  beautiful,  in  correspondence  with  the 
green  pastures  into  which  the  Good  Shepherd  was 
leading  me  and  the  still  waters  that  were  flowing 
about  me.  The  rich  autumnal  tints  seemed  to 
borrow  their  golden  hue  from  the  approaching 
Beulah-land,  and  every  bush  aflame  with  God.  My 
Decembers  were  as  pleasant  as  May. 

Early  on  a  lovely  spring  morning,  as  I  well  re- 
member, when  I  was  riding  on  my  way  to  an  ap- 
pointment, the  sunshine  and  showers  were  alternat- 
ing, the  carol  of  birds  and  the  sighing  of  zephyrs 
in  the  pine-tree  tops  above  me,  made  a  sort  of  para- 
dise for  the  moment,  and  music  filled  my  soul.  The 
words  I  sang  I  had  long  known,  and  while  singing 
them  my  whole  soul  drank  in  unutterable  bliss. 
These  were  the  words: 

"  Lovely  is  the  face  of  nature, 

Decked  with  spring's  unfolding  flowers, 
While  the  sun  shows  every  feature, 
Smiling  through  descending  showers. 

Birds,  with  songs  the  air  beguiling, 
Chant  their  sweetest  notes  with  glee, 

But  to  see  a  Savior  smiling, 

Is  more  soft,  more  sweet  to  me." 


MARMADUKE  PEARCE.  79 

At  this  point  it  will  be  in  order  to  introduce  to 
my  readers  some  of  the  strong,  brave  men  with 
whom  I  was  associated  in  the  old  Oneida  Confer- 
ence. I  published  sketches  of  some  of  them  in  the 
Northern  Christian  Advocate,  of  Syracuse,  N.  Y., 
a  few  years  ago.  There,  I  speak  of  them  as  old- 
time  veterans. 

In  my  childhood  some  of  the  earlier  ministers 
of  Methodism  were  guests  in  my  father's  home.  I 
was  old  enough  to  listen  intelligently  to  their  re- 
cital of  incidents  in  their  early  ministerial  travels. 

MARMADUKE  PEARCE 

was  a  marked  man.  In  my  young  manhood,  fifty 
years  ago,  he  was  one  of  my  earliest  and  best- 
known  friends.  He  entered  the  traveling  connec- 
tion in  1811,  in  the  Genesee  Conference.  After 
four  years  on  circuits,  he  was  appointed  presiding 
elder  on  the  Susquehanna  District,  Pennsylvania. 
Two  years  more  of  circuit  work  within  the  bounds 
of  the  Susquehanna  District,  and  then  he  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  Baltimore  Conference.  Here,  also, 
he  was  presiding  elder  on  the  Northumberland  Dis- 
trict, some  twenty  or  thirty  miles  below  his  old 
district  in  the  Genesee  Conference.  After  this  he 
filled  some  of  the  most  important  charges  in  Meth- 
odism. He  was  a  delegate  in  the  General  Confer- 
ences of  1820  and  1828.  In  1848,  when  I  was  pas- 
tor in  the  Wilkesbarre  Station,  he  was  my  guest 
for  several  days.  He  was  then  eighty-four  years 
of  age.  He  was  a  man  of  fine  presence.  He 
preached  in  my  pulpit  on  that  occasion  a  sermon 


80        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

twenty  minutes  long,  from  Psalm  lxxxiv,  n.    The 
effort  was  a  masterpiece  of  eloquence  and  power. 

JOHN  DEMPSTER,  D.  D. 

In  his  earlier  years  my  acquaintance  with  John 
Dempster  was  slight.  Later,  I  knew  him  well.  He 
was  the  son  of  James  Dempster,  whom  Mr.  Wesley 
sent  to  America  in  1774.  James  Dempster  was  a 
Scotchman,  a  graduate  of  Edinburgh  University; 
hence,  probably,  the  marked  intellectual  power  of 
his  son.  He  did  not  long  remain  in  the  Methodist 
body.  At  the  age  of  eighteen,  John  was  the  only 
convert  at  a  camp-meeting  in  Herkimer  County, 
New  York.  He  nobly  complemented  the  scant 
service  of  his  father  by  a  long,  brilliant  career  as  an 
itinerant,  and  by  being  the  father  and  founder  of 
our  theological  schools.  His  ministry  began  in 
1 81 6,  and  ended  with  his  life  in  1875.  One  year  he 
spent  in  great  exposure  and  hard  service  in  the. 
wilds  of  Lower  Canada.  Six  years  he  was  a  mis- 
sionary in  Buenos  Ayres,  South  America.  Of  the 
remaining  forty-eight,  eighteen  were  spent  in  New 
York  State,  and  the  others  in  New  Hampshire  and 
Illinois.  On  his  return  from  South  America  in 
1842  I  met  him  often.  His  transcendent  ability  and 
his  deep  personal  devotion  elicited  admiration.  In 
1843,  during  my  incumbency  at  Auburn,  N.  Y.,  he 
was  present  in  my  congregation,  and  listened  to  a 
sermon  on  the  Laodicean  Church.  At  evening  he 
was  greeted  by  an  immense  audience.  His  sermon 
was  forcible  and  thrilling.  Large  numbers  of  his 
former  admirers,  who  had  listened  to  his  eloquent 


JOHN  DEMPSTER.  8 1 

sermons  when  he  was  pastor  in  that  church  nine- 
teen years  before,  were  among  his  auditors  that 
evening.  In  each  of  three  towns  of  Central  New 
York — Auburn,  Cazenovia,  and  Rochester — he  was 
for  five  years  a  pastor.  In  Cayuga  District  four 
years,  and  in  Black  River  District  three,  he  was 
presiding  elder.  Twenty  years  later,  traveling  over 
parts  of  the  Cayuga  District,  I  found  the  fame  of  his 
great  achievements  everywhere  current.  Probably 
no  Methodist  preacher  has  ever,  for  two  gener- 
ations, more  strongly  and  permanently  than  he,  im- 
pressed his  personality  upon  a  people.  That  whole 
section,  including  the  cities  named,  was  shaken 
with  tremendous  awakenings  and  revivals  under 
his  ministry. 

Dr.  Dempster  died  November  28,  1863.  The 
writer  published  this  notice  of  the  great  and  good 
man: 

A  great  and  good  man  has  been  translated  to 
his  reward.  The  California  Advocate  of  December 
10th,  announces  the  death  of  Rev.  John  Dempster, 
D.  D.,  at  Evanston,  Illinois,  on  the  28th  tilt.  He  was 
in  his  seventy-fourth  year.  More  than  fifty  years  ago, 
Dr.  Dempster  was  converted  at  a  camp-meeting  in 
Herkimer  County,  New  York.  He  was,  we  believe, 
the  only  convert  of  the  meeeting;  yet  eternity  alone 
can  disclose  the  measure  of  good  resulting  from  this 
achievement  of  that  apparently  almost  fruitless  camp- 
meeting.  Mr.  Dempster  was  poor  and  uneducated 
when  converted.  Grace  quickened  his  naturally  vig- 
orous intellect,  and  roused  him,  not  in  vain,  to  earnest 
endeavor  after  high  mental  and  moral  acquisitions. 
From  a  condition  of  marked  illiterateness,  he  became 
6 


82        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

an  accomplished  and  profound  scholar;  from  being 
unpolished,  even  to  positive  awkwardness  and  pain- 
ful hesitancy  of  speech,  he  reached  eloquence  of  the 
highest  order.  He  was  a  close,  vigorous  thinker  and 
writer.  In  his  early  ministry,  Dr.  Dempster  was  emi- 
nently zealous,  and  successful.  Central  and  Western 
New  York  have  for  forty  years  borne  the  impress 
of  his  piety  and  ministerial  efficiency.  In  Auburn 
and  Rochester  revivals  of  unprecedented  power  and 
extent  attended  his  labors.  The  two  cities  named 
have  ever  since  felt  the  moral  impulse  then  and 
there  given.  Great  as  a  Christian  pastor,  mighty  as 
an  original  thinker,  masterly  as  a  pulpit  orator,  Dr. 
Dempster  early  took  rank  as  a  leading  man  in  the 
Church.  In  the  quarterly-meetings  which  he  held 
as  a  presiding  elder,  he  was  g.eatly  successful  in  oppos- 
ing and  confuting  infidelity.  An  instance  occurred 
at  Marcellus,  New  York.  The  leading  infidel  of  the 
place,  himself  highly  intelligent  and  especially  well 
read  in  skeptical  doctrines,  made  the  Doctor  his  guest. 
They  spent  the  whole  night  in  conversation  on  the 
evidences  and  truth  of  Christianity,  the  Doctor  grap- 
pling and  overturning  every  argument,  fact,  and 
theory  of  the  learned  infidel  against  Christianity. 
This  was  afterwards  admitted  by  the  infidel,  who,  when 
pressed  for  the  reason  of  his  adherence  to  infidelity 
after  all  its  props  had  been  swept  away,  stated  that 
where  he  found  one  man  who  could  thus  refute  his 
cavils,  he  found  ten  whom  he  could  confuse  and  who 
could  not  answer  his  positions,  and  he  would  not 
give  up  his  theory  for  one  man  in  ten.  Dr.  Dempster 
was  not  only  great  in  defending  Christianity  against 
the  assaults  of  infidelity,  but  also  in  elucidating  and 
maintaining  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  against  er- 
rorists.     An   example   of  this   was  given   the   writer 


JOHN  DEMPSTER.  83 

many  years  ago  by  a  person  who  witnessed  it.  At 
a  camp-meeting  in  Jefferson  County,  New  York,  the 
Doctor  was  preaching  on  the  Divinity  of  Christ.  A 
Socinian,  who  had  listened  to  him  as  he  advanced 
argument  after  argument  and  fact  upon  fact  in  sup- 
port of  the  Savior's  Godhead,  when  the  Doctor  ad- 
duced the  fact  that,  by  the  command  of  the  Supreme 
Father,  the  angels  bowed  in  worship  before  the  only 
begotten  Son,  forgetting  all  restraints  of  time  and 
place,  sprang  to  his  feet  and  exclaimed,  "He  is  God, 
he  is  God !"  Dr.  Dempster  was  a  member  of  the  Gen- 
eral Conferences  of  1828  and  1832,  and  also  of  sev- 
eral of  the  more  recent,  and  at  the  time  of  his  death 
he  was  a  delegate  elect  from  the  Rock  River  Confer- 
ence to  the  General  Conference  of  1864. 

For  several  years  he  was  a  missionary  at  Buenos 
Ayres,  South  America,  and  the  Church  founded  there 
by  his  wisdom  and  zeal,  still  sheds  its  light  and 
warmth  upon  the  surrounding  gloom  of  a  semi-barba- 
rism. The  specialty  of  Dr.  Dempster  for  the  last  quar- 
ter of  a  century  has  been  ministerial  education  in 
Biblical  schools.  To  him  belongs  the  high  honor  of 
inaugurating  and  founding  theological  institutions 
in  American  Methodism.  The  Biblical  Institute  at 
Concord,  N.  H.,  and  that  at  Evanston,  111.,  are  monu- 
ments of  his  zeal  and  constancy  in  this  noble  endeavor. 
He  had  for  several  years  cherished  the  purpose  of 
founding  a  Methodist  Biblical  Institute  on  this  coast. 
Our  contemporary  says  of  this  : 

"He  had  long  cherished  the  desire  and  purpose 
of  visiting  the  Pacific  Coast  with  the  design  of  estab- 
lishing such  an  institution  here.  If  the  California 
Conference  had  been  in  circumstances  to  respond  to 
a  very  generous  proposition  which  Dr.  Dempster  sub- 
mitted to  that  body  some  four  years  since,  his  last 


84        SrXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

wish  in  regard  to  his  probationary  mission  would 
have  been  realized.  Until  very  recently — perhaps  to 
the  last — he  looked  to  this  coast  with  the  deepest 
concern,  intending  to  visit  us  the  present  winter,  and, 
if  might  be,  take  initiative  measures  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  his  long-cherished  purpose.  Summoned  to 
a  higher  sphere,  he  leaves  to  others  the  inspiration 
of  his  earnest  wish  and  the  execution  of  his  noble 
purpose.  His  name  is  enrolled  among  the  most  emi- 
nent of  American  ministers.  His  illustrious  example 
of  successful  devotion  to  the  acquisition  of  knowledge 
must  powerfully  stimulate  our  rising  ministry  to  enter 
and  explore  all  the  fields  of  science  that  lie  within  the 
sphere  of  their  high  vocation.  Dr.  Dempster  subor- 
dinated all  his  learning  and  abilities  to  the  Dominion 
of  the  Cross." 

We  have  no  particulars  furnished  of  the  death 
scene.  That,  however,  is  not  of  material  moment. 
Such  a  life,  one  so  full  of  God  and  heaven  and  duty, 
is  ample  guarantee  of  the  eternal  happiness  and  tri- 
umph of  its  subject,  whatever  may  have  been  the 
immediate  incidents  of  the  dying  hour.  The  last  pub- 
lic testimony  we  have  from  the  Doctor  was  given  at 
a  Conference  love-feast  recently,  the  last  he  attended 
on  earth.    It  is  as  follows: 

"Speaking  at  the  Conference  love-feast  at  the 
recent  session  of  the  Rock  River  Conference,  he  said 
that  he  was  converted  at  a  camp-meeting.  'A  long 
night  of  struggle  was  my  lot — a  night  whose  dark- 
ness bordered  the  world  of  despair;  but  on  the  rise 
of  the  natural  sun  a  new  sun  arose — the  sun  of  eter- 
nity. The  clouds,  the  trees,  the  leaves,  the  very  stems 
of  the  trees,  were  vocal  with  music,  and  I  joined  the 
great  concert.  My  purpose  in  half  a  century  has 
not  changed.  You  all  see,  brethren,  that  in  the  case 
of  John  Dempster,  the  evening  shades  are  lengthen- 


JOSEPH  CASTLE.  85 

ing.  The  day  is  far  spent,  the  night  is  at  hand,  but 
the  path  is  bright  beneath  my  feet,  and  bright  be- 
yond.    I  look  for  the  crown  of  immortality.'  " 

"  O,  may  we  triumph  so, 

When  all  our  warfare  's  past 
And  dying,  find  our  latest  foe 
Under  our  feet  at  last." 


REV.  JOSEPH  CASTLE,  D.  D. 

Among  those  well-known  by  me  in  the  early 
times  was  Joseph  Castle.  He  was  a  commanding 
figure.  Tall,  erect,  muscular,  but  not  corpulent,  he 
was  graceful  in  form  and  action.  His  countenance, 
while  in  repose  somewhat  grave,  was  expressive, 
thoughtful,  benignant.  His  sermons  were  distin- 
guished by  clearness  and  beauty  of  expression. 
They  were  uttered  in  a  full  orotund  voice.  He 
was  quite  popular  and  in  large  demand.  His  itin- 
erancy began  in  the  Genesee  Conference  in  1823. 
His  first  appointment  was  in  Augusta,  Canada. 
His  next  was  in  Wyoming,  Pa.  Between  these  two 
places  there  were  probably  three  hundred  miles  of 
distance.  Four  years  later  he  was  stationed  in 
Oswego,  N.  Y.  Five  years  from  his  joining  the 
Conference  on  trial  he  was  appointed  to  Wilkes- 
barre,  Pa.,  then,  as  ever  since,  one  of  the  leading 
charges  in  Methodism ;  then  successively  in  Au- 
burn (two  full  terms),  Ithaca,  Utica,  Cazenovia, 
Ithaca  (second  term),  Berkshire  District.  By  trans- 
fer in  1839  he  became  a  member  of  the  Troy  Con- 
ference. His  appointment  there  was  Garrettson 
Station  in  Albany.     Later  he  went  to  the  Phila- 


86        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

delphia  Conference.  In  1864,  when  I  attended 
the  General  Conference  which  met  in  Philadelphia, 
he  was  present  at  a  service  at  which  my  father  and 
brother  and  myself  officiated.  He  was  then  pre- 
siding elder  of  the  Philadelphia  District,  although 
approaching  his  eightieth  year. 

REV.  GEORGE  HARMON. 

George  Harmon  was  the  patriarch  of  the  Oneida 
Conference,  having  entered  the  Philadelphia  Con- 
ference in  1808.  Charles  Giles  preceded  him  one 
year  in  his  entrance  into  the  same  Conference ;  but 
Harmon  was  much  longer  effective.  In  1831,  Giles 
took  a  supernumerary  relation.  In  1836,  Giles  be- 
came a  member  of  the  Black  River  Conference, 
while  Harmon  lived  and  died  in  the  Oneida  Confer- 
ence. He  was  small  of  stature,  silent,  reserved,  sel- 
dom heard  on  the  Conference  floor  except  to  an- 
swer routine  questions.  And  yet  he  must  have  been 
a  man  of  rare  abilities,  even  among  those  about  him 
who  were  justly  reputed  foremost  men.  From  him 
the  writer  learned  some  incidents  about  Asbury, 
which  may  hereafter  be  rehearsed.  When  the 
writer  entered  the  Oneida  Conference  in  1839  on 
trial,  Harmon  was  already  a  veteran  in  his  thirty- 
second  year.  He  was  yet  vigorous.  In  that  year  he 
was  appointed  to  his  fourth  district,  having  been 
presiding  elder  already  twelve  or  fifteen  years.  Dur- 
ing my  acquaintance  with  him  after  that,  he  must 
have  been  on  districts  some  eight  or  twelve  years 
more.    He  was  appointed  presiding  elder  after  hav- 


PADDOCK  BROTHERS — DAVID   A.    SHEPARD.      87 

ing  been  a  traveling  preacher  only  five  years.  His 
pastoral  charges  were  many  of  them  first  grade ;  as 
Geneva,  Ithaca,  Lyons,  Utica,  etc.  After  forty- 
five  or  fifty  years  of  most  honorable,  useful  toil  he 
was  retired. 

THE  PADDOCK  BROTHERS. 

Benjamin  G.  Paddock  and  his  younger  brother, 
Zechariah,  held  leading  positions  in  their  day. 
The  former  entered  the  traveling  connection  in 
18 10,  the  latter  six  years  later.  Both  were  from 
time  to  time  effective  presiding  elders.  Both  filled 
stations  of  more  than  ordinary  grade.  Benjamin 
G.  Paddock  was  my  second  colleague  in  my  first 
circuit. 

DAVID  A.  SHEPARD. 

David  A.  Shepard  was  fifteen  years  my  senior  in 
the  Conference.  For  several  years  he  was  my  pre- 
siding elder.  He  was  an  able,  thoughtful,  popular 
preacher,  always  thoroughly  acceptable  and  useful. 
In  one  place,  where  the  Reformed  Methodists 
were  somewhat  aggressive  in  denouncing  the 
bishops  and  leading  ministers  of  our  Church  as  hav- 
ing and  wielding  great  power,  Mr.  Shepard  made  a 
speech  on  the  subject.  He  set  forth  the  truth  that 
for  a  great  system,  and  which  was  grandly  effective, 
more  power  was  required  than  for  a  small  system. 
"As  for  example,"  said  he,  "no  one  would  think  of 
putting  a  hundred  horse-power  to  turn  a  coffee- 
mill."  Then,  applying  the  illustration  to  the  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church,  which  employed  so  many 


88        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

itinerants  and  ministered  to  the  spiritual  needs  of  so 
many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people,  and  com- 
paring the  Reformed  Methodists,  so  few  in  number 
and  with  so  little  connectional  form,  he  showed 
the  inconsistency  of  caviling  at  the  greater  Church 
for  requiring  and  wielding  its  greater  measure  of 
power. 

THE  AFRICAN  MISSIONARY. 

The  short,  glorious  career  of  Squire  W.  D. 
Chase  ended  at  Syracuse,  N.  Y.,  in  fifteen  years 
after  it  began,  and  during,  or  immediately  after, 
the  session  of  the  Conference  of  which,  for  some 
years,  he  had  been  a  member.  His  last  sermon  on 
earth  was  preached  at  the  Conference,  which  met 
July  26,  1843,  in  Syracuse.  He  had  been  sev- 
eral years  a  missionary  in  Liberia,  Africa — long 
enough  to  take  into  his  system  the  seeds  of  death, 
which,  alas !  too  soon  grew  to  their  fatal  result.  I 
shall  never  forget  the  sermon.  He  knew  and  we 
knew  that  the  seal  of  death  was  upon  him.  Hence 
he  spake  as  a  dying  man  to  dying  men.  His  text 
was  Romans  i,  5 :  "By  whom  we  have  received 
grace  and  apostleship,  for  obedience  to  the  faith, 
among  all  nations,  for  His  name."  It  was  the  su- 
preme and  final  act  of  the  missionary  returning  to 
his  home  Conference,  his  farewell  to  them  and  to 
earth.  It  was  the  grand  enunciation  and  vindica- 
tion of  his  stupendous  work  as  a  missionary,  that 
in  benighted  Africa  he  had  been  enforcing  "obedi- 
ence to  the  faith  for  His  name." 


NOTABLE   MINISTERS.  89 


W.  W.  NINDE. 


William  Ward  Ninde  was  an  orator  of  great 
ability  and  renown.  He  was  an  eminent,  illustrious 
minister  of  Christ,  known  far  and  wide  for  his  holy 
life  and  his  able  and  brilliant,  and  all  too  brief, 
career  as  a  preacher  and  pastor.  He  entered  the 
traveling  connection  in  the  Genesee  Conference  in 
1828.  The  charges  he  filled  were  mostly  within 
the  present  limits  of  the  Northern  New  York  Con- 
ference. They  were  of  fair  grade :  Oswego,  Adams, 
Pulaski,  Syracuse,  Lowville,  Rome.  In  all  of  them, 
except  Pulaski  and  Lowville,  he  staid  the  full  term. 
In  Oswego  and  Adams  he  was  stationed  two  full 
terms.  After  a  year's  work  on  the  Herkimer  Dis- 
trict, he  finished  his  short  but  glorious  career  Feb- 
ruary 27,  1845.  In  company  with  Albert  D.  Peck, 
his  successor  on  the  district,  I  visited  him  a  short 
time  before  his  death.  With  one  or  more  of  his 
children  I  saw  his  son,  W.  X.  Ninde  (now  a  bishop). 
He  was  a  bright-looking,  flaxen-haired  boy.  The 
father  was  fully  ready  for  his  departure — peaceful, 
hopeful,  happy.  Pie  impressed  his  strong  person- 
ality upon  all  that  region.  His  name  is  as  ointment 
poured  forth. 

ELIAS  BOWEN,  D.  D. 

I  must  not  omit  this  grand,  colossal  figure  of 
the  early  times.  He  was  twice  my  presiding  elder. 
Dr.  Bowen  was  a  strongly  marked  man.  Of  fine 
form  and  figure,  of  commanding  presence,  with 


9<D        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

abilities  far  above  the  average,  he  wielded  a  wide 
religious  influence.  He  was  a  strong,  aggressive 
preacher,  rather  than  a  popular  one.  His  favorite 
weapon  was  a  battle-ax.  He  was  a  controversialist, 
rather  than  an  evangelist.  He  seemed  never  more 
at  home  than  when  assailing  and  refuting  what  he 
held  to  be  erroneous.  In  his  first  district,  the 
Wilkesbarre,  he  preached  a  most  severe  and  vio- 
lent sermon  against  Hopkinsianism — a  form  of  Cal- 
vinism then  prevalent.  His  opposition  to  what  he 
deemed  untrue  and  injurious  was  relentless.  On 
one  occasion,  at  a  session  of  the  Oneida  Confer- 
ence, when  Dr.  Dempster  was  present  seeking  to 
enlist  the  Conference  in  favor  of  theological  semi- 
naries, Dr.  Bowen  preached  a  sermon,  by  Confer- 
ence designation  and  by  previous  appointment, 
directly  and  strongly  against  theological  schools 
in  Methodism  as  subversive  of  the  true  mission  and 
intent  of  Methodism.  During  the  anti-slavery  agi- 
tation he  became  a  most  violent  and  radical  Abo- 
litionist. Just  before  the  late  Civil  War  he  pub- 
lished a  book  denouncing  the  complicity  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  with  slavery.  The 
war  ended  slavery.  Dr.  Bowen's  book  was  there- 
fore unsalable.  At  the  age  of  eighty  he  died,  in 
1 87 1.  In  his  fifty-six  years  of  itinerant  labor  he 
filled  the  leading  charges  in  New  York  and  Penn- 
sylvania. For  twenty-four  years  he  was  a  presiding 
elder.    He  was  a  grand,  glorious  man. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

AMONG  the  early  Methodist  preachers  in  the  old 
i  Oneida  Conference,  there  were  none  with 
whom  my  relations  were  so  pleasant  and  service- 
able as  Jesse  T.  Peck,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  who  later 
became  a  popular  and  useful  bishop,  and  his  elder 
brother,  Rev.  George  Peck,  D.  D.  He  was  my 
preceptor  and  the  principal  of  the  Cazenovia  Semi- 
nary, which  I  attended  for  two  years  successively. 
He  was  present  when  I  made  my  first  public  decla- 
mation, and  for  which  I  had  no  relish.  I  iiad  been 
a  local  preacher  some  years,  and  I  stated  to  my 
principal,  and  my  father's  close  friend,  that  I  did 
not  want  to  appear  on  the  stage  and  recite  a  speech 
of  somebody's  preparation;  that  if  he  would  allow 
me,  I  would  get  up  and  make  an  address  prepared 
by  myself;  or,  if  he  thought  best,  I  would  preach 
a  sermon.  But  he  said  the  rules  of  the  school 
would  not  admit  of  my  doing  so;  that  perhaps  it 
might  be  well  for  me  to  begin  in  the  second  grade 
of  declaimers,  where  the  declamations  were  private. 
It  was  the  worst  advice  he  could  have  given  me, 
for  it  was  usual  for  the  lads  present  on  such  occa- 
sions to  have  a  roystering  time  in  making  fun,  and 
laughing  at  the  unfledged  orators  and  their  awk- 
ward ways.  Then  he  said,  "Pay  no  more  attention 
to  the  boys  that  are  present  than  you  would  at  so 
many  cabbage-heads."  I  went  on  the  stage  blow- 
ing my  nose  to  show  my  utter  disregard  of  the 

91 


92         SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

presence  of  the  audience;  and  when  I  stood  upon 
the  stage  I  paid  little  regard  to  posture  or  to  grace- 
fulness of  gesture  and  action.  The  boys  roared, 
and,  to  my  horror,  the  principal  himself  joined  in 
the  boisterous,  tumultuous  laughter.  I  had  recited 
one  verse  of  several  I  had  learned  (nearly  all  begin- 
ners select  poetry  for  their  declamation  exercises), 
when  the  storm  was  at  its  height.  Then  I  stopped, 
and  indignantly  rebuked  the  unseemly  conduct  of 
the  audience,  including  the  principal,  Dr.  Peck.  I 
apprehend  I  became  quite  natural,  and  the  amuse- 
ment rose  to  a  higher  pitch.  I  was  about  to  leave 
the  stage,  when  Dr.  Peck  said  it  would  not  do  to 
be  written  down  a  failure  in  my  first  attempts  at 
speaking  in  school.  I  went  back  and  finished  my 
recitation.  The  scene  was  written  by  Dr.  Peck  to 
my  father,  with  the  assurance  that  his  son  would  go 
through,  and  that  he  did  not  need  to  be  concerned 
as  to  the  outcome.  After  that  I  did  not  any  more 
practice  the  speaking  drill  in  the  second  grade  dec- 
lamation class. 

Dr.  George  Peck  attained  great  honors  and  dis- 
tinction as  editor  of  the  Methodist  Review  and  Chris- 
tian Advocate. 

GEORGE  GARY. 

George  Gary  was  one  of  the  finest-looking  of 
men,  and  one  of  the  best  equipped,  most  fascinat- 
ing, and  effective  of  the  Methodist  ministers  of  his 
times.  Lest  this  statement,  and  others  which  will 
follow,  should  be  deemed  rather  excessive  and  ful- 
some, as  the  extravagant  estimate  of  inexperienced 


A   MOST  REMARKABLE  MAN.  93 

boyhood  before  riper  age  had  lent  its  more  sober 
and  critical  judgment,  let  it  be  observed:  In  my 
boyhood  for  a  year  Mr.  Gary  was  my  honored  and 
loved  pastor;  in  my  early  manhood,  after  entering 
the  Oneida  Conference,  Mr.  Gary  for  a  dozen  or 
more  years  was  my  contemporary  in  an  adjoining 
Conference  (the  Black  River)  while  he  was  yet  in 
his  full,  vigorous  manhood.  During  those  years  I 
had  many  opportunities  of  seeing  and  knowing 
him,  at  Conference  sessions  and  at  camp-meetings, 
and  on  other  like  occasions.  A  dozen  years  later  I 
succeeded  him  in  the  Oregon  Mission,  and  there  I 
learned  incidents  and  estimates  of  him  which  could 
not  be  ascribed  to  the  extravagance  of  youthful 
and  immature  admiration  of  one's  hero. 

Over  one  hundred  and  four  years  ago — viz.,  De- 
cember 8,  1793 — George  Gary  was  born  in  Middle- 
field,  Otsego  County,  N.  Y.  He  was  well  born — a 
Puritan  of  the  Puritans.  In  1630,  Arthur  Gary  and 
his  two  sons,  Nathaniel  and  William,  came  from 
England,  and  settled  in  Roxbury,  Mass.  Arthur 
Gary  and  Nathaniel  Gary  were  his  ancestors.  Na- 
thaniel Gary  was  his  great-grandfather.  At  the  age 
of  nine  or  twelve  years  George  Gary  was  converted 
at  the  family  altar  in  his  childhood  home.  As  the 
morning  prayer  ceased,  George  still  remained  on 
his  knees  by  the  woodpile  in  the  chimney-corner  of 
the  old  log-cabin.  He  was  weeping  and  sobbing. 
The  minister  inquired  the  reason  for  his  grief.  He 
was  under  conviction  of  sin.  Prayer  was  offered 
for  him,  and  by  him.  Then  and  there,  and  once  for 
all,  he  was  soundly  converted.     His  childhood  call 


94        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

was,  like  Samuel's,  effectual.  It  staid  with  him 
through  a  full  and  very  useful  life. 

As  now  recalled,  Mr.  Gary  was  slightly  below 
the  average  stature,  perhaps  five  feet  eight,  or  five 
feet  eight  and  a  half  inches.  He  was  a  blonde, 
with  light,  flaxen  hair,  and  blue,  expressive  eyes. 
His  head  was  so  faultless,  and  so  well  adjusted  to 
his  body,  that  a  Canova  might  well  have  envied  it. 
His  form  was  somewhat  full,  but  not  too  much  so. 
His  pose  was  admirable.  His  movement  and  action 
were  grace  itself.  His  manner  was  extremely 
charming.  He  was  altogether  a  most  fascinating 
man. 

In  several  aspects  his  life-story  was  remarkable. 
On  the  death  of  his  mother,  and  while  he  was  yet 
quite  young,  he  went  with  his  uncle  to  live  with 
him  in  Pomfret,  Conn.  Thus  he  grew  up  in  the 
atmosphere  of  his  ancestors,  and  in  their  native 
land  he  began  his  ministry.  Five  years  after  he 
began  his  ministry  in  New  England,  he  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  Genesee  Conference  in  New  York, 
the  State  of  his  birth ;  and  in  the  second  year  of  his 
itinerancy  in  New  York  he  was  preaching  to  the 
people  among  whom  he  was  born.  In  1809,  when 
he  was  fifteen  and  a  half  years  old,  he  was  ad- 
mitted on  trial  into  the  New  England  Conference. 
His  first  charge  was  in  Barre,  Vt.,  as  third  preacher 
on  a  large  circuit.  Elijah  Hedding,  afterward 
Bishop  Hedding,  was  his  first  presiding  elder.  The 
next  four  years  were  spent  on  great  circuits  in 
Maine.  In  18 14  he  was  transferred  to  the  Genesee 
Conference,  New  York,  and  stationed  on  Herkimer 


GEORGE   GARY.  95 

Charge  in  the  Mohawk  Valley,  below  and  probably 
including  Utica.  In  1815  he  was  the  third  preacher 
on  the  Otsego  Circuit.  In  181 6  he  was  on  Sandy 
Creek  Charge,  near  Watertown,  yet  in  Oneida 
District.  In  181 7  he  was  stationed  in  Utica.  In 
1 81 8,  when  he  was  twenty-four  and  a  half  years 
old,  he  was  presiding  elder  on  Oneida  District.  His 
light  hair  and  ruddy  complexion  and  his  short  stat- 
ure gave  him  a  most  youthful,  even  boyish,  appear- 
ance, while  at  the  same  time  he  was  bearing  great 
responsibilities.  It  is  not  the  purpose  in  this  sketch 
to  write  a  full  biography  of  him,  nor  to  give  spe- 
cifically the  list  of  his  appointments.  It  will  suffice 
to  say  that  for  nearly  all  his  ministerial  life  he  was 
a  presiding  elder. 

From  1844  to  1848  he  was  superintendent  of 
the  Oregon  missions,  under  conditions  and  for  pur- 
poses which  will  be  better  understood  by  a  brief 
preliminary  recital  of  facts.  Commodore  Wilkes 
had  been  sent  to  the  Pacific  Coast  to  survey  and 
sound  and  map  our  bays  and  sounds  and  rivers 
upon  the  Pacific.  While  there  he  visited  Oregon, 
especially  the  Hudson  Bay  Company's  posts,  which 
were  then  under  the  spiritual  direction  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholics.  He  visited,  also,  the  Methodist 
missions  there.  By  the  former  of  these  he  was 
toasted  and  feted.  By  the  Methodist  mission- 
aries he  was  shown  a  cheerful,  generous  Christian 
hospitality,  and  no  more.  In  his  reports  to  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  he  lauded  the  Hudson  Bay 
Company  and  the  Roman  Catholics;  and  he  dis- 
paraged the  Methodist  missions,  as  conducting  a 


96        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT  WORK. 

large  colonization  scheme,  rather  than  a  mission 
for  souls. 

Dr.  Bond,  then  editor  of  the  New  York  Advo- 
cate, took  up  the  cry,  and  but  too  successfully  urged 
the  reduction  of  our  material  and  secular  concerns 
in  Oregon.  Mr.  Gary  was  sent  to  Oregon  to  sell 
out  all  our  improvements  and  possessions  there, 
and  to  reduce  the  missions  to  purely  religious  in- 
terests and  movements.  This  he  did,  wisely  and 
successfully,  so  far  as  he  was  directed;  although 
the  whole  policy  of  the  movement,  as  seen  from 
the  present  standpoint,  was  the  gravest  possible 
mistake.  The  large  establishments  were  then  in- 
dispensable to  the  missionaries  remaining  in  Ore- 
gon. The  Hudson  Bay  Company  would  let  the 
missionaries  have  no  cows,  sheep,  horses,  or  hogs 
to  raise  flocks  from,  and  Mr.  Lee  was  obliged  to  go 
to  California,  and  procure  these  necessaries  to  the 
continuance  of  the  missionaries  in  Oregon. 

On  August  14,  1848,  Congress  passed  an  Act 
organizing  the  Territory  of  Oregon,  in  which  was  a 
clause  granting,  severally,  to  each  mission  station 
then  being  in  Oregon  six  hundred  and  forty  acres 
of  land.  Our  Church  had  had  six  missionary  sta- 
tions in  Oregon.  But  by  Mr.  Gary's  direction, 
acting  under  instructions  of  the  Missionary  Board, 
these  were  sold  or  given  away.  But  for  this  we 
would  have  had  three  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
forty  acres  of  land  in  the  most  eligible  points  in 
Oregon ;  a  plant  which  would  have  been  a  founda- 
tion for  schools  and  churches  in  all  that  mighty 
empire  for  all  after  generations.     As  it  was,   we 


SPECIAL    TRANSFERS.  97 

lost  all  that  most  desirrbk  and  deserved  means; 
while  the  Roman  Catholics  there,  as  in  other  of 
the  frontier  Territories,  laid  the  foundations  of  re- 
ligious propagandism  on  the  widest  scale. 

Mr.  Gary's  early  educational  advantages  had 
been  very  limited.  Until  he  became  a  Methodist 
traveling  minister  he  had  never  studied  grammar, 
and  yet  he  spoke  and  wrote  the  purest  and  most 
correct  English.  He  was  a  fluent,  eloquent,  and 
accurate  speaker,  never  violating  any  grammatical, 
nor  any  of  the  rhetorical,  rules  of  speech.  This 
skill  we  attributed  to  his  close  observation  of  the 
best  speakers,  and  to  his  reading  of  the  most  emi- 
nent and  correct  English  authors.  If  Mr.  Gary, 
after  his  marvelous  pulpit  abilities  were  fully  ma- 
tured, had  become  a  star  transfer  from  Conference 
to  Conference,  as  has  become  the  usage  since  his 
time,  he  would  have  filled  the  finest  pulpits  in  the 
strongest  charges  of  Methodism.  But  at  that 
period  several  things  prevented;  e.  g.,  he  was  un- 
ambitious for  place,  position,  and  honors ;  in  those 
times  there  were  few  star  appointments;  transfers 
to  special  appointments  were  then  rarely  made. 
One  of  the  earlier  of  the  kind  was  that  of  R.  S. 
Foster  from  the  Ohio  Conference  to  Mulberry 
Street  Church,  New  York,  in  which  he  nobly  vin- 
dicated the  wisdom  of  the  transfer.  As  indicat- 
ing Mr.  Gary's  modesty  and  unaffected  avoidance 
of  distinction,  this  example  is  in  point:  His  friends 
desired  to  procure  for  him  the  honorary  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Divinity  from  Wesleyan  University.  In 
this  they  would  doubtless  have  succeeded,  and  if 

7 


98        SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

they  had,  never  would  such  honors  have  been  more 
worthily  borne.  Yet  his  positive  refusal  to  permit 
such  procurement  of  honors  restrained  his  friends. 
He  lived  and  died  an  untitled  Methodist  minister. 

Reckoning  Asbury  as  the  first  American  bishop, 
and  one  of  the  earliest  Methodist  itinerants,  Mr. 
Gary,  who  was  ordained  by  Asbury,  was,  therefore, 
of  the  second  generation  of  those  eminent  fathers 
of  our  Church.  This  place  he  has  most  worthily 
filled.  A  volume  of  incidents  of  his  extraordinary 
history,  which  would  have  living  interest,  could  be 
written.  While  Mr.  Gary  was  in  some  respects  a 
brilliant  man  and  a  genius,  yet  he  was  a  man  of 
unusually  strong  common  sense.  In  the  dialect  of 
these  times  he  would  be  pronounced  a  level-headed 
man.  I  was  present  at  a  session  of  the  Conference 
of  which  he  was  a  member  and  a  presiding  elder. 
The  character  of  one  of  his  preachers  was  under 
examination.  The  question  was  asked  officially, 
"Is  there  anything  against  Brother  Blank?"  Mr. 
Gary  replied,  as  now  remembered :  "There  are  two 
deaths  which  a  Methodist  preacher  may  die;  one, 
the  end  of  this  earthly  life;  the  other,  the  loss  of 
the  respect  and  confidence  of  his  brethren  and  of 
the  Church,  which  means  the  death  of  his  useful- 
ness as  a  Methodist  minister.  The  former  is  infi- 
nitely preferable  to  the  latter.  I  therefore  move  that 
Brother  Blank  be  requested  to  ask  for  a  location. " 
Without  further  discussion  the  motion  prevailed. 

Mr.  Gary  abounded  in  humor.  Instances  decid- 
edly humorous  and  sometimes  peculiarly  funny  oc- 
curred in  his  ministerial  life. 


AMUSING  INCIDENT.  99 

Traditions  of  amusing  incidents  in  the  career  of 
George  Gary  which  display  his  prevailing  genial 
qualities  are  numerous.  I  could  furnish  many  of 
them,  but  brevity  requires  that  I  should  select  but 
a  few,  and  abbreviate  them. 

He  was  often  an  inmate  of  my  father's  house, 
and  an  inimitable  raconteur.  Three  years  after 
he  left  Oregon  I  arrived  there.  One  of  the  first 
things  I  heard  of  him  after  reaching  that  country 
was  that  he  was  a  man  of  habitual  cheerfulness, 
who  greatly  enjoyed  relating  the  incidents  of  his 
earlier  itinerant  life,  and  whose  nature  was  genial 
and  kindly.  It  was  also  current  that  he  was  ap- 
parently much  shocked  at  the  homespun  freedom 
and  the  rollicksome  ways  of  the  Oregon  brethren. 
He  was  accustomed  to  admonish  them  very  gravely, 
when  starting  out  on  an  equestrian  trip,  to  ride 
quietly,  either  on  a  walk  or  a  slow  trot,  and  never 
on  a  canter,  and  with  the  dignity  becoming  Meth- 
odist ministers.  They  gave  me  the  legend — though 
I  had  heard  it  many  years  before — how  on  one  of 
his  first  charges  he  was  well-nigh  rejected  because 
he  was  so  young-looking,  his  appearance  making 
him  seem  much  younger  than  he  really  was.  This 
is  the  legend  as  heard  in  boyhood,  and  as  rehearsed 
to  me  in  Oregon.  Mr.  Gary  was  the  third  preacher 
on  the  circuit.  The  story  that  the  circuit  had  a 
boy  preacher  reached  the  charge  before  he  did.  It 
preceded  him  at  every  appointment.  Before  seeing 
him  the  stewards  had  laid  in  objections  to  the  pre- 
siding elder  that  he  was  too  young  and  inexperi- 
enced for  the  chief  appointment,  where  the  compe- 


IOO     SIXTY- ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

tition  was  sharp  and  the  people  were  critical.  They 
suggested  that  the  boy  preacher  should  be  re- 
stricted to  the  rural  appointments,  and  the  chief 
places  be  left  wholly  to  the  service  of  the  senior 
preachers.  To  this  the  elder  objected,  that  it  would 
be  quite  unfair  to  discriminate  against  the  young 
preacher,  especially  before  having  heard  him  at  all. 
In  this  sensible  advice  the  stewards  acquiesced. 
When  the  Sabbath  came  for  the  young  man  to 
preach  in  the  county  town  his  fame  as  a  boy 
preacher  had  preceded  him.  A  full  house  awaited 
his  coming  with  no  ordinary  interest.  Punctually 
he  came,  and  he  marched  up  the  aisle  with  the 
veritable  saddlebags.  Ascending  the  pulpit  stairs 
and  conducting  the  preliminary  exercises  with  be- 
coming words  and  manner,  he  announced  as  his 
text  John  vi,  9:  "There  is  a  lad  here,  which  hath 
five  barley  loaves  and  two  small  fishes;  but  what 
are  they  among  so  many?"  In  that  sermon  the 
boy  preacher  won  his  right  of  way  with  the  people 
of  that  chief  town,  whether  the  stewards  were  rec- 
onciled to  him  or  not.  His  sermon  was  in  keeping 
with  the  genius  which  led  to  the  selection  of  the 
text.  All  admired  him,  and  they  said  he  was  very 
mature  for  such  a  boy  in  years  and  looks. 

His  immaturity  when  he  acceded  to  the  district 
was  the  occasion  of  some  surprise  and  questioning, 
in  which  he  vindicated  his  right  to  the  place  ac- 
corded him  by  showing  himself  fully  equal  to  the 
great  trust  reposed  in  him. 

Soon  after  his  incumbency  of  his  first  district  he 
visited  New  York.    He  called  Saturday  evening  on 


GARY  AND  DR.   BANGS.  IOI 

Dr.  Nathan  Bangs,  who  inquired  his  name  and 
place  of  labor.  He  gave  his  Christian  name, 
George,  and,  withholding  his  surname,  he  stated 
that  he  preached  in  Oneida,  in  the  central  part  of 
the  State.  Dr.  Bangs  gave  him  the  freedom  of  his 
library,  and  begged  him  to  amuse  himself  with 
books,  and  excuse  the  Doctor  while  he  completed 
his  preparation  for  the  next  day's  sermon.  Sabbath 
morning  Gary  went  with  his  host  to  the  church,  and 
followed  him  into  the  pulpit,  taking  such  part  as 
was  assigned  to  him.  At  the  close  of  the  sermon 
Dr.  Bangs  announced  a  four  o'clock  afternoon 
service  at  some  uptown  ward  and  schoolhouse,  say- 
ing to  the  audience  that  a  young  preacher  from  the 
country  was  in  the  pulpit,  who  he  hoped  would  fill 
that  out-appointment,  in  which  case  he,  the  Doctor, 
would  preach  there  in  the  church  himself.  Gary 
arose  and  declined  the  schoolhouse  service;  but  he 
said  if  it  was  agreeable  to  them,  he  would  preach 
in  that  church  at  the  hour  named.  "Then,"  said 
Dr.  Bangs,  "I  will  preach  uptown  and  the  young 
brother  here."  His  able  and  vivid  sermon  pro- 
duced a  profound  impression.  Dr.  Bangs  saw  him 
no  more  for  years ;  but  the  fame  of  his  sermon  was 
so  great  that  the  Doctor  took  down  the  General 
Minutes,  and  found  that  his  young  guest  was  the 
presiding  elder  of  Oneida  District.  The  next  time 
Mr.  Gary  visited  New  York,  Dr.  Bangs,  having 
found  out  his  real  rank,  accorded  him  fuller  cour- 
tesies than  on  his  first  visit. 

Mr.  Gary  was  a  born  orator.    The  instances  of 
his  transcendent  power  over  his  immense  congre- 


102      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

gations  were  most  remarkable.  His  great  strength 
lay  in  his  dramatic  power  in  rendering  thrilling 
Scriptural  incidents.  He  was  greatly  at  home  at 
camp-meetings  and  quarterly-meetings  before  large 
masses,  who  had  gathered  with  high  expectations. 
He  rarely,  if  ever,  disappointed  them.  His  voice 
was  clear,  musical,  penetrating.  When  animated 
in  preaching,  his  countenance  was  irresistibly  at- 
tractive and  expressive.  Some  of  his  sermons  were 
masterpieces  of  skill  and  power.  They  can  never 
be  forgotten.  A  few  specimens  are  given.  "Daniel 
in  the  Lions'  Den"  is  one. 

In  quiet,  deliberate  manner  he  briefly  recounts 
the  story  of  the  prophet's  sentence.  This  fixes  the 
attention  of  all.  Then  he  describes  the  den  as  a 
vault  or  chamber  beneath  the  surface  of  the  earth. 
The  beasts  are  eagerly  looked  for.  Their  roar  is 
distinct.  But  when  Daniel  is  committed  to  the  den 
the  lions  are  as  still  as  death.  The  sleepless  night 
of  the  king  is  set  forth,  and  with  the  early  dawn 
the  royal  monarch  approaches  the  den.  Suiting 
the  action  and  voice  to  the  occasion,  the  preacher 
advances  to  the  edge  of  the  platform,  and  looks 
down  as  if  recognizing  Daniel.  In  the  most  tender 
and  pathetic  tones  he  cries  out :  "O  Daniel !  O 
Daniel !  is  thy  God  whom  thou  servest  continually, 
able  to  deliver  thee  from  the  lions?"  and  then,  in 
changed  voice  and  with  ventriloquial  effect,  the 
answer  comes  up  from  the  prophet  calm,  serene, 
confident:  "O  king,  live  forever!  My  God  hath 
sent  his  angel  and  hath  shut  the  lions'  mouths,  that 
they  have  not  hurt  me;  forasmuch  as  before  him 


GARY'S  SERMONS.  103 

innocency  was  found  in  me,  and  also  before  thee, 
O  king !"  The  pause,  the  hushed  silence  of  the  vast 
throng,  is  almost  painful.  But  when  at  the  king's 
command  Daniel's  accusers  are  committed  to  the 
hungry  lions,  a  rustle  is  heard,  and  the  people  re- 
cover their  breath.  If  it  were  anywhere  else  tumul- 
tuous applause  would  break  forth.  As  it  is,  many 
are  weeping,  and  some  are  shouting  over  Daniel's 
deliverance.  To  eye  and  ear  and  heart  the  whole 
scene  has  been  most  vivid  and  realistic.  In  another 
sermon,  but  with  like  manner,  the  three  Hebrews 
in  the  fiery  furnace  were  the  theme  of  impassioned 
words  and  expressive  acting.  The  audience  were 
carried  off  their  seats,  and  with  mingled  tears  and 
shouts  the  victory  was  announced. 

One  of  his  favorite  sermons  was  on  Isaiah  lxiii, 
1-6:  "Who  is  this  that  cometh  from  Bozrah?"  etc. 
After  a  calm  recital  of  the  text  and  its  brief  exe- 
gesis, he  advanced  to  the  front  of  the  platform,  and 
seized  the  skirt  of  his  coat  and  emphasized  the 
questions  and  answers,  each  in  unlike  tone  and 
manner,  and  yet  in  both  thrilling  his  hearers  as 
though  an  angel  from  heaven  had  been  speaking. 
Besides  his  vivid  impersonations  of  his  characters, 
Gary's  voice  when  he  was  impassioned  had  always 
marked  expression  of  tenderness  and  pathos.  The 
other  remarkable  instances  of  Gary's  power  as  a 
preacher  are  these:  The  first  was  at  a  camp-meet- 
ing in  the  Britain  Settlement,  north  of  Syracuse, 
some  fifty  years  ago.  He  first  drew  his  audience 
to  their  feet  in  a  dense  mass  around  him,  tears  flow- 
ing from  all  eyes.    The  sermon  was  preached  at  the 


104     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

eight  o'clock  hour  Sunday  morning,  when  many 
were  all  the  time  arriving  upon  the  ground.  The 
external  conditions  were  all  unfavorable  to  marked 
effect.  The  sermon  was  only  twenty  minutes  in 
length.  Text,  Genesis  xix,  17:  "Escape  for  thy 
life."  The  minister  was  in  tears.  He  depicted  the 
angel  urging  Lot  to  great  speed  and  earnestness  in 
escaping  from  the  awful,  fiery  storm.  He  then,  with 
signal  emphasis,  applied  the  warning  to  all  present, 
and  in  piercing  tones  and  with  a  voice  quivering 
with  emotion  he  uttered  the  cry  of  the  text,  "Es- 
cape for  thy  life!"  One  hundred  or  more  fell  to 
the  ground  as  though  stricken  with  sudden  death. 
Sinners  cried  for  mercy,  souls  were  converted,  and 
for  hours  afterward  one  continuous  prayer-meet- 
ing was  kept  up,  in  which  scores  of  souls  were  con- 
verted. The  other  instance  of  his  power  at  camp- 
meeting  was  given  in  the  Advocate,  by  V.  M. 
Coryell,  in  1879.  It  occurred  in  Danby,  near  Ith- 
aca, seventy  years  ago.  He  had  just  arrived  upon 
the  ground  from  the  funeral  of  his  wife.  As  he  ap- 
proached the  end  of  his  sermon  his  soul  became  all 
absorbed  in  his  overwhelming  affliction.  He  was 
now  about  for  the  first  time  to  say  good-bye  to  his 
children  as  orphaned  of  a  mother's  tender  care.  He 
referred  to  the  unprotected  loneliness  of  those  dear 
children.  Then  with  overwhelming  and  indescrib- 
able pathos  and  with  flowing  tears  he  repeated  the 
verse : 

"  O,  what  are  all  my  sufferings  here, 
If,  Lord,  thou  count  me  meet 
With  that  enraptured  host  to  appear, 
And  worship  at  thy  feet?" 


AT  CAMP-MEETING.  105 

Then  in  still  more  tender  tones,  he  repeated  the 
next  lines: 

"  Give  joy  or  grief,  give  ease  or  pain, 
Take  life  or  friends  away ; 
But  let  me  find  them  all  again 
In  that  eternal  day." 

Then  the  great  fountain  of  tears  was  broken  up. 
Men  cried  like  children;  others  shouted  amid  tears. 
Unsaved  men  and  women  uttered  piercing  cries. 
Multitudes  were  converted,  and  many  shouts  of 
glory  and  victory  were  lifted  up. 

Thirty-eight  years  ago  this  great  and  good  man 
went  up  to  his  crowning.  His  death  was  tri- 
umphant. 


Sjraral  f 'triad. 

Life  in  Oregon 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MY  transfer  to  Oregon  was  peculiar  and  provi- 
dential. In  1850  I  went  into  Michigan  to 
consider  and  decide  upon  the  question  of  seeking 
a^  transfer  to  that  Peninsula.  I  was  so  well  pleased 
with  the  country,  that  I  greatly  desired  to  remove 
there,  and  I  decided  to  do  so  if  I  could  get  a  trans- 
fer to  the  Michigan  Conference.  Bishop  Waugh 
presided  at  the  Oneida  Conference  in  1850.  I 
waited  o.n  him,  informing  him  of  my  wish.  He  said 
the  bishops  were  favorable  to  transferring  men  to 
Michigan.  It  was  a  growing  State,  and  more  men 
than  they  had  were  in  demand.  But  it  seemed  diffi- 
cult to  supply  certain  places  in  Oneida  Conference 
for  that  year.  He  promised  me  a  transfer  to  Mich- 
igan the  next  year,  if  I  would  stay  in  my  own  Con- 
ference the  pending  year.    To  this  I  agreed. 

In  1 85 1  I  went  up  to  our  Conference,  which 
met  in  Ithaca,  N.  Y.,  fully  expecting  to  be  trans- 
ferred to  Michigan.  My  goods  were  all  packed  in 
readiness  for  that  removal.  Bishop  Janes  presided 
at  the  Oneida  Conference  in  185 1.  He  wished  to 
transfer  me  to  Oregon,  then  a  foreign  mission  of 
our  Church.  I  suppose  that  wish  was  pursuant 
to  information  he  had  had,  that,  in  1847,  when  a 
call  was  made  in  the  Christian  Advocate  for  two 
men  and  their  wives  to  go  to  Oregon  as  mission- 
aries, Rev.  Albert  D.  Peck  and  myself  had  offered 
ourselves  in  response  to  that  call,  with  our  wives, 

109 


IIO     SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

who  were  sisters.  Our  response  came  too  late, 
as  William  Roberts,  of  Newark,  N.  J.,  and  James 
H.  Wilbur,  of  Northern  New  York,  had  offered  and 
had  been  accepted  before  our  offer  had  reached  the 
Board.  My  heart  had  always  been  drawn  towards 
Oregon  as  a  mission  field.  Jason  Lee  and  his  two 
Flathead  Indian  boys,  in  1839,  had  been  guests  at 
my  father's  for  a  week,  and  I  had  talked  much  with 
him  and  with  the  Indians,  and  had  had  my  sym- 
pathies strongly  enlisted  for  Oregon.  In  the  mean- 
time, Rev.  Mr.  Peck  had  died.  His  wife  had  re- 
married, and  I  had  given  up  all  thought  or  expec- 
tation of  ever  going  to  that  country.  The  call  of 
Bishop  Janes  made  a  strong  impression  upon  me; 
and  yet  I  could  not  decide  the  matter  alone.  Mrs. 
Pearne  must  be  consulted.  The  bishop  said,  "Go 
and  see  your  wife,  and  come  back  as  soon  as  you 
can."  He  also  said,  that  if  I  should  conclude  to 
decline  Oregon,  he  would  transfer  me  to  Michigan. 
I  went  on  Friday.  I  had  to  go  by  lake  to  Cayuga 
Bridge,  forty  miles ;  thence  by  rail  to  Utica,  ninety 
miles;  and  thence  by  stage  to  Madison,  twenty 
miles.  On  Monday  morning  I  was  back  at  the 
seat  of  the  Conference.  Mrs.  Pearne  had  readily 
given  her  approval  of  the  measure,  and  I  informed 
the  bishop  he  might  transfer  me  to  Oregon.  The 
presiding  elders  and  the  Conference  had  unani- 
mously approved  of  my  transfer  to  that  distant  mis- 
sion field,  the  Conference  also  agreeing  that  if  at 
any  time  I  might  wish  to  return,  the  Conference 
doors  would  swing  open  to  receive  me. 

The  gold  excitement  as  to  California  was  still 


EN  ROUTE   TO   OREGON.  1 1 1 

at  fever  height.  The  bishop  asked  me  if  I  thought 
I  could  resist  the  temptation  to  go  to  the  California 
gold-mines  when  I  should  arrive  in  California  en 
route.  I  said  I  could.  His  transfer  ran  in  the  usual 
form.  The  letter  he  gave  me  with  the  transfer  said 
in  substance:  "Go  to  Oregon,  live  there  and  work 
there  for  Jesus,  and  die  there  for  Jesus."  It  seemed 
from  that  letter  that  I  was  expected  to  separate 
myself,  finally,  from  the  associations  of  a  lifetime 
on  the  Atlantic  Coast,  and  begin  lifelong  associ- 
ations with  a  country  I  had  never  seen.  But  I  had 
put  my  hand  to  the  plow.  I  would  not  look  back. 
In  three  weeks'  time  we  were  on  the  steamer 
Illinois,  en  route  for  Oregon  via  Panama,  Acapulco 
in  Mexico,  and  San  Francisco.  The  steamer  was 
much  crowded  writh  passengers  for  the  new  Occi- 
dental El  Dorado.  I  think  there  were  over  a  thou- 
sand passengers.  Four  ministers  were  on  board ; 
two  for  Oregon,  and  two  for  California.  Three 
of  the  preachers  were  Methodists,  and  one  was  a 
United  Presbyterian.  After  we  went  aboard  ship, 
we  found  that  three  of  our  wives  had  been  put  into 
one  stateroom,  and  their  husbands  into  another, 
with  an  alcove  between  the  rooms.  As  we  sat  in 
the  alcove,  before  the  steamer  started,  and  had 
made  each  other's  acquaintance,  I  remarked  that 
while  it  was  inconvenient  for  husbands  and  wives 
to  be  separated,  yet  the  alcove  connecting  the 
rooms  was  convenient.  We  could  have  family 
prayers  without  interruption  from  other  passengers. 
Later,  the  United  Presbyterian  minister  demurred 
to  my  proposal  about  prayers.     He  said  it  was  not 


112      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

practicable ;  for  we  sang  hymns,  while  in  his  Church 
he  sang  Psalms.  But  said  I,  "That  need  not  hinder 
our  praying  together  and  singing  together,  if  you 
like ;  for  I  can  sing  Psalms  with  you,  and  so  can  the 
others,  and  I  doubt  not  they  would  be  quite  will- 
ing." "That  is  not  it  exactly,"  he  replied;  "we 
do  n't  like  to  countenance  hymn-singing  by  sing- 
ing Psalms  with  those  who  sing  hymns."  So  we 
had  no  family  prayers.  As  will  be  seen,  he  was  very 
greatly  liberalized  by  living  in  Oregon.  Ten  years 
later,  he  returned  to  the  States.  He  wrote  to  me, 
from  up  the  country  where  he  lived,  that  he  was 
coming  to  Portland,  en  route  for  the  States,  and  he 
would  like  to  be  my  guest  over  the  Sabbath,  and 
to  preach  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  at 
night;  and  the  people  of  that  Church  could  sing 
their  own  hymns  and  use  their  own  organ,  and  he 
would  preach,  and  sing  a  Psalm  alone  at  the  end 
of  the  sermon.  His  name  was  Samuel  G.  Irvine. 
He  was  made  moderator  of  the  United  Presby- 
terian General  Assembly  that  year. 

We  arrived  in  Aspinwall,  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Chagres  River,  on  Sunday  morning.  The  ship 
anchored  in  the  Chagres  Bay,  two  or  three  miles 
from  port.  The  purser  had  said  we  might  stay  on 
shipboard,  if  we  did  not  want  to  disembark  on  Sun- 
day. So  we  staid.  But  in  the  afternoon  the  captain 
ordered  all  the  passengers  to  leave  the  ship,  as  they 
were  going  down  to  Navy  Bay,  some  ten  miles 
away,  to  coal  up.  This  put  us  to  a  great  disadvan- 
tage, as  all  the  boats  from  the  shore  had  gone  back 
to  port.     But  we  overcame  this,  by  going  in  the 


CROSSING   THE  ISTHMUS.  113 

ship's  lighter.  Reaching  port,  we  found  that  all 
the  best  boats  had  gone  up  the  river,  and  we  had  to 
take,  from  what  were  left,  such  as  we  could  get.  We 
chartered  a  sampan;  i.  c,  a  boat  with  a  plank  roof 
over  it.  This,  as  a  protection  from  sun  and  rain, 
was  desirable.  It  was  the  rainy  season ;  and  the 
flat-bottomed  boat  was  very  slow  and  unsuitable 
for  the  river,  which  was  in  flood.  The  river  was 
too  rapid  for  oars,  and  too  deep  for  poling.  We 
had  to  cordelle  it  by  the  bushes  or  rope.  The 
bushes  were  loaded  with  a  small,  red  ant,  whose 
bite  was  like  fire,  and  we  could  not  escape  it. 

We  were  a  week  crossing  the  isthmus ;  five  days 
to  Gorgona,  a  distance  of  sixty-five  miles ;  and  one 
day  by  mule,  twenty-two  miles,  to  Panama;  and 
one  day  in  Panama.  Our  company  consisted  of 
Rev.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Irvine;  Rev.  Adam  Bland,  wife 
and  child  (Brother  Bland  and  William  Taylor  were 
brothers-in-law) ;  and  Rev.  Henry  Ercanbrack,  my- 
self, and  Mrs.  Pearne  and  child.  It  rained  in  tor- 
rents without  premonition,  and  then  instantly  the 
sun  would  scorch  us  with  its  torrid  heat — a  very 
hazardous  condition  to  encounter.  Several  of  the 
steamer's  passengers  died  from  yellow  fever  on  the 
passage  up  the  river.  We  were  in  great  peril  at 
one  time.  Our  sampan  had  become  wedged 
under  a  lateral  branch  of  a  tree  on  the  shore,  the 
river  was  rising  every  moment,  and  we  were  in  dan- 
ger of  being  sunk  in  the  boiling,  roaring  flood. 
Some  of  the  ladies,  especially  Mrs.  Bland,  became 
very  nervous  and  highly  excited.  In  another  in- 
stance, Mrs.  Bland  became  much  alarmed.  The 
8 


112      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

practicable ;  for  we  sang  hymns,  while  in  his  Church 
he  sang  Psalms.  But  said  I,  "That  need  not  hinder 
our  praying  together  and  singing  together,  if  you 
like ;  for  I  can  sing  Psalms  with  you,  and  so  can  the 
others,  and  I  doubt  not  they  would  be  quite  will- 
ing." "That  is  not  it  exactly,"  he  replied;  "we 
do  n't  like  to  countenance  hymn-singing  by  sing- 
ing Psalms  with  those  who  sing  hymns."  So  we 
had  no  family  prayers.  As  will  be  seen,  he  was  very 
greatly  liberalized  by  living  in  Oregon.  Ten  years 
later,  he  returned  to  the  States.  He  wrote  to  me, 
from  up  the  country  where  he  lived,  that  he  was 
coming  to  Portland,  en  route  for  the  States,  and  he 
would  like  to  be  my  guest  over  the  Sabbath,  and 
to  preach  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  at 
night ;  and  the  people  of  that  Church  could  sing 
their  own  hymns  and  use  their  own  organ,  and  he 
would  preach,  and  sing  a  Psalm  alone  at  the  end 
of  the  sermon.  His  name  was  Samuel  G.  Irvine. 
He  was  made  moderator  of  the  United  Presby- 
terian General  Assembly  that  year. 

We  arrived  in  Aspinwall,  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Chagres  River,  on  Sunday  morning.  The  ship 
anchored  in  the  Chagres  Bay,  two  or  three  miles 
from  port.  The  purser  had  said  we  might  stay  on 
shipboard,  if  we  did  not  want  to  disembark  on  Sun- 
day. So  we  staid.  But  in  the  afternoon  the  captain 
ordered  all  the  passengers  to  leave  the  ship,  as  they 
were  going  down  to  Navy  Bay,  some  ten  miles 
away,  to  coal  up.  This  put  us  to  a  great  disadvan- 
tage, as  all  the  boats  from  the  shore  had  gone  back 
to  port.     But  we  overcame  this,  by  going  in  the 


CROSSING   THE  ISTHMUS.  113 

ship's  lighter.  Reaching  port,  we  found  that  all 
the  best  boats  had  gone  up  the  river,  and  we  had  to 
take,  from  what  were  left,  such  as  we  could  get.  We 
chartered  a  sampan ;  i.  c,  a  boat  with  a  plank  roof 
over  it.  This,  as  a  protection  from  sun  and  rain, 
was  desirable.  It  was  the  rainy  season ;  and  the 
flat-bottomed  boat  was  very  slow  and  unsuitable 
for  the  river,  which  was  in  flood.  The  river  was 
too  rapid  for  oars,  and  too  deep  for  poling.  We 
had  to  cordelle  it  by  the  bushes  or  rope.  The 
bushes  were  loaded  with  a  small,  red  ant,  whose 
bite  was  like  fire,  and  we  could  not  escape  it. 

We  were  a  week  crossing  the  isthmus ;  five  days 
to  Gorgona,  a  distance  of  sixty-five  miles ;  and  one 
day  by  mule,  twenty-two  miles,  to  Panama;  and 
one  day  in  Panama.  Our  company  consisted  of 
Rev.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Irvine;  Rev.  Adam  Bland,  wife 
and  child  (Brother  Bland  and  William  Taylor  were 
brothers-in-law) ;  and  Rev.  Henry  Ercanbrack,  my- 
self, and  Mrs.  Pearne  and  child.  It  rained  in  tor- 
rents without  premonition,  and  then  instantly  the 
sun  would  scorch  us  with  its  torrid  heat — a  very 
hazardous  condition  to  encounter.  Several  of  the 
steamer's  passengers  died  from  yellow  fever  on  the 
passage  up  the  river.  We  were  in  great  peril  at 
one  time.  Our  sampan  had  become  wedged 
under  a  lateral  branch  of  a  tree  on  the  shore,  the 
river  was  rising  every  moment,  and  we  were  in  dan- 
ger of  being  sunk  in  the  boiling,  roaring  flood. 
Some  of  the  ladies,  especially  Mrs.  Bland,  became 
very  nervous  and  highly  excited.  In  another  in- 
stance, Mrs.  Bland  became  much  alarmed.  The 
8 


114     SIXTY- ONE   YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

natives  who  were  propelling-  the  boat  landed  at  a 
grassy  bank,  and,  taking  up  their  machetes,  or  long- 
knives,  they  left  us,  and  disappeared  from  sight. 
Mrs.  Bland  insisted  they  were  going  for  re-enforce- 
ments, and  then  would  return  and  kill  us.  In  a 
few  minutes  they  came  back,  each  man  having  a 
stalk  of  sugar-cane,  which  they  had  brought  to 
chew.  So  the  suspicion  of  murder  was  dismissed. 
Reaching  Gorgona,  we  spent  the  night  there.  I 
was  very  ill,  with  strong  symptoms  of  yellow  fever. 
I  went  to  a  druggist's,  and  bought  thirty  grains  of 
sulphate  of  quinine,  divided  into  two  equal  parts. 
One  of  them  I  took  at  nine  o'clock  and  retired,  tell- 
ing my  wife  to  give  me  the  other  at  midnight ;  if  I 
was  delirious  and  refused  to  take  it,  to  get  help 
and  put  it  down  me.  The  coercion  proved  unnec- 
essary. My  wife  awakened  me,  and  I  took  my 
medicine.  The  next  morning  I  was  as  clear  as  a 
bell.  But  the  night-shirt  and  the  sheets  were  as 
yellow  as  saffron.  On  the  route  to  Panama,  on 
muleback,  each  lady  was  accompanied  by  a  mule- 
teer, who  carried  a  child.  After  traveling  on  mule- 
back  some  three  miles,  Mrs.  Bland  gave  her  babe 
some  food.  She  had  the  muleteer  to  tighten  the 
cinch,  to  make  the  saddle  firmer.  Remounting  and 
ascending  a  rise,  her  husband,  who  was  following 
his  wife,  asked  a  swarthy  Frenchman  about  the 
road.  He  gave  a  French  shrug,  and  said,  "Im- 
passable." He  held  a  rifle.  She  concluded  he  was 
a  brigand  demanding  a  passport ;  and  as  she  knew 
her  husband  had  none,  she  supposed  the  end  of 
life   had    come    for   one    or    both    of   them.      She 


AT  SAN  FRANCISCO.  1 15 

whipped  up  her  mule.  The  saddle-girth  broke ;  she 
came  to  the  ground,  and  running  after  me  she  de- 
clared that  the  Frenchman  was  killing  her  husband. 
This,  too,  proved  a  groundless  fear. 

At  Panama  we  were  divided;  Ercanbrack  and 
Bland  going  on  the  steamer  Republic,  and  Brother 
Irvine  and  myself  going  on  the  California.  We 
missed  connection  with  the  Oregon  steamer  at  San 
Francisco,  and  were  delayed  a  week  in  California, 
making  our  trip  from  New  York  to  Oregon  six 
and  a  half  weeks.  We  touched  at  Acapulco  in 
Mexico.  Arriving  at  San  Francisco,  we  found  that 
the  steamer  Republic  had  knocked  a  hole  in  her  hull. 
Our  vessel  was  sent  down  to  tow  her  into  port. 
We  reached  San  Francisco  Sunday  morning.  At 
evening  I  preached  in  Powell  Street  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  to  five  hundred  men  and  two 
women.  The  brethren  pressed  me  very  hard  to 
remain  in  California,  and  wait  until  they  could 
communicate  with  New  York,  and  receive  authority 
from  Bishop  Janes  for  me  to  remain  permanently 
in  California,,  where  they  alleged  we  were  more 
needed  than  in  Oregon.     We  declined. 

I  ought  perhaps  to  mention  that,  by  the  re- 
quest of  Rev.  William  Taylor,  the  California  street 
preacher,  and  later  Bishop  of  Africa,  I  preached 
on  the  Plaza  to  his  street  congregation,  at  two 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  of  our  arrival. 
He  sung  them  up  by  singing  the  hymn,  "Hear  the 
royal  proclamation."  The  people  gathered  from 
all  directions.  There  were  probably  from  five  hun- 
dred to  eight  hundred  persons  present.    I  preached 


Il8     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

October  morning,  like  a  silver  strip  along  the  coast. 
Above  this,  in  the  distance,  was  the  dense,  dark 
ereen  of  the  fir-timber  on  the  mountain's  side. 
Above  this  we  saw  the  snow-covered  peaks  of 
Mount  Hood,  Mount  Rainier  or  Tacoma  (the  In- 
dian name),  Saint  Helen's,  and  Mount  Jefferson, 
which  seemed  like  a  setting  for  the  mountain  pic- 
ture on  which  we  gazed.  I  had  never  before  seen 
snowy  mountains.  The  view  was  one  of  thrilling 
enchantment.  It  can  never  be  forgotten.  The  ship 
stopped  at  Astoria  for  an  hour.  I  went  ashore. 
The  first  man  I  met  was  Mr.  Leonard,  a  gentleman 
whom  I  had  often  seen  in  Owego,  N.  Y.,  my  last 
charge  before  leaving  for  Oregon.  He  addressed 
me  by  name,  and  said  he  had  often  heard  me  preach. 
We  were  five  hours  ascending  the  river  to  Portland, 
a  hundred  miles  distant.  The  last  twelve  miles  we 
had  been  sailing  in  the  Willamette  River.  In  Port- 
land we  met  Rev.  James  II .  Wilbur,  pastor  of  our 
Church  in  Portland,  and  Rev.  C.  S.  Kingsley,  prin- 
cipal of  the  Portland  Academy  and  Female  Semi- 
nary. 

Mr.  Wilbur  advised  that  we  should  remain  at 
Portland  until  William  Roberts,  superintendent  of 
the  Oregon  and  California  Missions,  could  be  in- 
formed of  my  arrival,  and  could  appoint  me  to  my 
work,  which,  Mr.  WTilbur  said,  might  be  up  the 
Willamette  River  or  down  the  Columbia,  or  pos- 
sibly over  to  Puget  Sound.  My  letter  of  instruc- 
tion from  Bishop  Janes  directed  me  to  report  in 
person  to  Mr.  Roberts  in  Salem,  his  residence.  So 
I  pursued  my  voyage  up  the  Willamette  River  in  a 


OREGON  DISTRICT.  1 19 

steamer.  Thirteen  miles  from  Portland  is  Oregon 
City,  where  we  encountered  a  portage  and  a  fall 
in  the  river  of  some  eight  or  ten  feet.  Here  was 
erected  the  first  Protestant  house  of  worship  on  the 
entire  Pacific  Coast  from  Cape  Horn  to  the  Straits 
of  Fuca.  The  distance  from  Oregon  City  to  Salem, 
fifty  miles,  was  passed  on  an  upper  river  steamer, 
which  in  winter  and  spring  was  able  to  ascend  the 
river  one  hundred  miles  above  Salem,  the  capital 
of  Oregon  Territory.  Mr.  Roberts,  by  direction 
of  Bishop  Janes,  appointed  me  presiding  elder  on 
the  Oregon  District,  which  included  all  the  United 
States  territory  from  the  Missouri  River  to  the  Pa- 
cific, eighteen  hundred  miles  east  and  west;  and 
from  the  California  line  in  north  latitude  39th  de- 
gree to  the  49th  degree  of  north  latitude,  six  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles;  including  an  area  of  1,170,000 
square  miles.  The  States  now  included  in  the  Ore- 
gon District  as  existing  forty-six  years  ago,  are 
Oregon  and  Washington,  Idaho,  Montana,  and 
North  and  South  Dakota. 

Fortunately,  only  the  western  part  of  this  im- 
mense area  was  sparsely  settled ;  and  so  the  actual 
distance  east  from  the  ocean  was  about  three  hun- 
dred miles.  There  were  from  ten  to  twelve  charges, 
and  about  six  hundred  members.  The  following 
itinerant  ministers  were  employed  in  ministerial 
work :  William  Roberts,  superintendent  of  the  Ore- 
gon and  California  Mission  Conference;  Portland, 
James  H.  Wilbur.  In  1847,  William  Roberts  and 
James  H.  Wilbur  came  to  Oregon.  James  H.  Wil- 
bur had  been  connected  with  the  Black  River  Con- 


120     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OE  ITINERANT    WORK. 

ference  in  Northern  New  York,  and  Mr.  Roberts 
had  been  successively  a  member  of  the  Philadelphia 
and  the  Newark  (New  Jersey)  Conferences.  C.  S. 
Kingsley  was  doing  a  very  excellent  educational 
work.  His  school  was  well  patronized.  F.  S. 
Hoyt,  a  former  member  of  the  Newark  Conference, 
was  exceedingly  popular  and  useful,  both  as  an  in- 
structor and  a  minister.  He  was  secretary  of  the 
Conference,  and  he  joined  with  me  later  in  offering 
the  Oregon  circular  resolution  on  Lay  Delegation. 

A.  F.  Waller  and  J.  L.  Parrish  lived  in  Salem. 
They  both  came  to  Oregon  in  the  good  ship  Lau- 
sanne in  1839,  reaching  Oregon  some  time  in  1840. 
L.  T.  Woodward,  principal  of  Santiam  Academy, 
came  in  1850;  as  did  also  N.  Doane,  one  of  the 
earliest  graduates  of  Concord  Biblical  Institute. 
David  Leslie  was  an  early  missionary,  now  super- 
annuated. William  Helm,  of  Kentucky,  was  a  vet- 
eran.  John  Flinn,  an  accession  to  the  ministers, 
in  1850,  Dallas.  D.  E.  Blain  and  John  McKinney 
were  filling  Calapooya  Circuit.  C.  O.  Hosford,  a 
native  preacher.  J.  F.  Devore,  an  accession  in 
1850.  Joseph  O.  Rayner,  stationed  in  Clatsop  and 
Astoria.  J.  S.  Smith,  Jacksonville.  Later  came 
P.  G.  Buchanan,  who  preached  in  Portland  a  time ; 

B.  C.  Lippincott  and  Benjamin  Close  labored  in 
Puget  Sound ;  G.  M.  Berry  on  the  Columbia  River 
work;  Isaac  Dillon  came  in  1852  from  Ohio.  The 
workers  who  had  preceded  my  coming  were  earnest 
and  faithful  men.  Some  of  them  had  been  in  Ore- 
gon a  dozen  or  more  years.  Others,  whose  com- 
ing was  later  than  mine,  approved  themselves  to 


MISSION  CONFERENCE.  12  I 

God  and  the  Church  by  their  devotion  and  zeal, 
Gnstavus,  J.  M.,  and  11.  R.  Hines,  brothers,  es- 
pecially. 

The  population  of  Oregon,  as  given  by  the 
United  States  Census  of  1850,  was:  Of  whites, 
13,294;  Indians,  about  100,000;  perhaps  more. 
This  population  of  whites  was  scattered  over  the 
western  part  of  Oregon.  The  vast  regions  between 
the  Cascade  Mountains  and  the  Missouri  River 
were  peopled  only  by  wild  beasts  and  savages.  In 
Western  Oregon  the  people  were  scattered  at  wide 
distances  apart,  on  respectively  mile  sections  and 
half-mile  half-sections.  There  were  perhaps  six  or 
eight  hundred  people  in  Portland,  two-thirds  as 
many  in  Oregon  City,  five  hundred  in  Salem,  a 
hundred  and  fifty  in  Astoria,  and  twice  as  many  in 
Vancouver,  on  the  Columbia.  In  Vancouver  there 
was  a  United  States  military  post,  and  perhaps  two 
hundred  settlers.  Albany,  Marysville,  La  Fayette, 
Dayton,  Eugene  City  in  Willamette  Valley,  Rose- 
berry  in  Umpqua  Valley,  and  Jacksonville  and 
Phcenix  in  Rogue  River  Valley,  were  small  villages. 
The  number  of  settlers  was  very  small ;  so  it  was 
in  the  city  of  Dalles,  where  we  had  also  a  United 
States  military  post.  We  had  long  horseback  rides, 
with  rivers  to  ford  and  swim,  making  the  work  hard 
and  perilous.  But  we  had  kind,  hospitable  treat- 
ment, excellent  meetings,  and  some  success. 

In  November,  1851,  the  Oregon  Mission  Con- 
ference was  held  in  Portland,  Oregon,  by  William 
Roberts,  superintendent.  He  divided  the  work  into 
two  districts:  Oregon  District,  William  Roberts, 


122      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

presiding  elder ;  including  Salem  and  all  below  it  to 
the  sea;  including,  also,  Olympia,  Steilacoom,  Se- 
attle, Mound  Prairie,  Cowlitz.  Mary's  River 
District,  Thomas  H.  Pearne,  presiding  elder.  This 
included  Lebanon,  Calapooya,  Albany,  Marysville, 
Belknap's  Settlement,  Eugene  City,  Roseburg, 
Jacksonville,  Phoenix.  Before  detailing  more  at 
length  the  progress  of  our  work  in  Oregon,  it  may 
be  well  to  give  a  few  general  statements,  which  will 
enable  the  reader  to  follow  more  intelligently  and 
with  more  interest  the  narratives  and  incidents 
which  may  be  recited  later. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

AS   to   the   name   Oregon,   which   Bryant   men- 
l  tions  in  his  well-known  lines  in  Thanatopsis — 
he  speaks  of  persons 

"  loosing  themselves  in  the  continuous  woods, 
Where  rolls  the  Oregon,  and  hears  no  sound 
Save  its  own  dashing," — 

there  are  two  theories.  One  of  these  accounts  for 
its  origin  thus:  The  plains  of  Oregon  are  covered 
with  a  wild  herb,  called  origanum,  or  thyme; 
whence,  by  a  corruption  of  the  word  origanum, 
came  the  word  Oregon.  This  is  much  the  more 
probable  of  the  two.  The  other  theory  is,  that  the 
early  Jesuit  missionaries  who  visited  Oregon  found 
a  tribe  of  Indians  dwelling  on  the  banks  of  the 
Lower  Columbia,  with  large,  pendent  ears,  whom, 
because  of  this  physical  peculiarity,  they  called 
Auricanes,  or  large-eared  Indians,  and  that  the 
word  Oregon  is  a  corruption  of  the  word  Auri- 
canes. But  this  account  is  shown  to  be  improbable, 
by  the  fact  that  if  those  early  Indians  had  this  pe- 
culiarity, they  would  have  transmitted  it  to  their 
descendants;  whereas,  no  such  descendants  are 
found. 

DESCRIPTION  OF  OREGON. 

Oregon,  when  I  saw  it  in  1851,  was  a  great 
country,  having  the  boundaries  of  an  empire.  It 
rivaled  in  beauty  many  lands,  and  greatly  excelled 

123 


124     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

some  others.  Oregon  abounds  in  magnificent 
scenery.  Its  mountains  are  fringed  with  somber 
cedars  and  pines  and  firs,  and  their  being  crested 
with  snow-peaks  heightens  the  scenic  effects.  The 
prairies  are  covered  with  countless  sunflowers 
growing  on  stalks,  perhaps  eighteen  inches  in 
height,  and  abundance  of  daisies  and  violets  carpet 
the  whole  country  with  beauty,  and  perfume  the 
whole  air  with  their  fragrance.  My  first  view  of 
Oregon  from  the  sea  produced  the  most  delightful 
impression.  We  were  near  enough  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Columbia  to  trace  all  the  outlines  of  the 
coasts ;  the  shore-line  was  covered  by  a  fog  looking 
like  a  silver  ribbon.  Above  that  were  the  Cascade 
Mountains,  five  thousand  feet  high,  clothed  to  their 
tops  with  fadeless  green,  which,  however,  in  the 
distance  was  slightly  empurpled.  Above  the  moun- 
tain-line rose  Mount  Hood  to  the  right,  eighteen 
thousand  feet,  and  to  the  left  Saint  Helen's,  four- 
teen thousand  feet.  As  the  sun  purpled  the  sum- 
mits of  these  peaks,  the  combination  of  silver  and 
emerald  and  purple  and  white  was  indescribably 
beautiful. 

The  scenery  on  the  Columbia  River  is  simply 
magnificent.  The  shores  are  bold  and  bluff,  piled 
up  with  columnar  basalt,  as  clearly  outlined  as  the 
Giant's  Causeway  and  Fingal's  Cave  in  Staffa,  on 
the  shores  of  Scotland.  Grand  reaches  of  water 
are  seen;  rocky  islands,  here  and  there,  with  co- 
lumnar rocks  like  a  stone  church-spire;  dashing 
waterfalls  adorn  the  steep  river  sides, — making  up  a 
very  lovely  and   sublime  panorama.     The   ever- 


DESCRIPTION  OF  OREGON.  1 25 

present  snow  mountains  lend  an  indescribable 
charm  to  the  near  or  distant  view.  Along  the 
Willamette  River  the  scenery  is  more  subdued  and 
quiet  than  on  the  Columbia.  But  the  beauty  of  the 
Willamette  Valley  is  unsurpassed  by  anything  I 
have  ever  seen  in  any  other  country  in  the  whole 
wide  world.  And  yet,  when  in  the  thirties  Senator 
Thomas  H.  Benton  advocated  and  urged  the  ac- 
quisition of  Oregon,  it  was  decried  as  a  land  of 
barren  wastes  and  fruitless  sand-dunes,  not  worth 
the  taking  in.  Relatively,  Oregon  will  compare 
favorably  for  loveliness,  fertility,  and  productive- 
ness with  any  other  country. 

Oregon  has  three  natural  divisions — the  West- 
ern, the  Middle,  and  the  Eastern  divisions.  The 
Western  extends  from  the  sea  to  the  Cascade 
Mountains.  It  includes  the  coast-range  of  moun- 
tains, ranging  from  fifteen  hundred  feet  in  height 
to  three  or  four  thousand  feet.  Western  Oregon 
again  is  divided  into  three  parts — the  Willamette 
Valley,  running  north  and  south,  say  two  hundred 
miles  long  and  sixty  miles  wide.  The  Willamette 
River  rises  in  the  Cascade  and  Coast  Mountains, 
two  hundred  miles  south  from  the  Columbia  River, 
and  runs  north,  flowing  into  the  Columbia  one  hun- 
dred miles  from  the  sea.  It  is  navigable,  except  the 
small  portage  at  Oregon  City  Falls,  for  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles,  during  eight  months  of  the 
year.  On  the  west  side  are  Tualitin,  La  Creole, 
Yamhill,  and  Mary's  and  Long  Tom  Rivers, 
which  rise  in  the  Coast  Mountains,  and  enter  into 
the  Willamette  River  at  distances  of  thirty  miles 


126      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

apart.  On  the  east  side  of  the  Willamette,  Clacka- 
mas, Putin,  Molalla,  Santiam,  Calapooya,  and  Mo- 
hawk Rivers  flow  from  the  Cascades  to  the  Willa- 
mette, at  greater  or  less  distances  from  each  other. 

The  Umpqua  Valley  lies  east  and  west.  It  is 
made  by  the  Umpqua  River,  which,  rising  in  the 
Cascade  Mountains  and  flowing  westerly,  de- 
bouches into  the  sea,  after  cutting  right  through 
the  Coast  Mountains.  This  valley  is  one  hundred 
miles  long  and  fifty  miles  across.  It  is  very  pic- 
turesque and  productive.  The  soil  possesses  great 
fertility.  ■  Rogue  River  Valley  is  a  repetition  of 
Umpqua,  with  perhaps  wider  valleys  than  the 
Umpqua. 

Washington  State,  north  of  the  Columbia 
River,  has  no  considerable  east  and  west  rivers 
traversing  it.  The  Cowlitz  River  rises  in  Mound 
Prairie,  and  flows  southward  to  the  Columbia,  de- 
bouching into  the  Columbia  thirty  or  forty  miles 
from  the  sea.  North  of  Mound  Prairie  is  a  com- 
paratively level  and  heavily-timbered  section,  sepa- 
rating the  waters  of  the  Columbia  from  the  waters 
of  Puget  Sound,  Hood's  Canal,  and  Admiralty 
Inlet.  North  of  these  is  the  Gulf  of  Georgia,  with 
hundreds  of  islands,  and  receiving  the  waters  of 
Fraser  River.  North  and  east  of  this  Gulf  of 
Georgia  is  our  northern  boundary-line  of  49  de- 
grees north  latitude,  running  westerly  until  it 
reaches  the  center  of  the  Gulf  of  Georgia,  thence 
south  by  the  main  ship  channel  through  the  Gulf 
of  Georgia,  around  the  south  end  of  Vancouver's 
Island,   through   the   Straits   of   Fuca   to   the   sea. 


CLIMATE   OF  OREGON.  127 

These  magnificent  inland  seas  are  surrounded  by 
inexhaustible  fir  forests,  suitable  for  masts,  spars, 
and  lumber,  and  navigable  for  the  largest  ships  to 
all  their  shores,  containing  twenty-eight  hundred 
miles  of  sea-line. 

Middle  Oregon  is  a  high  table-land,  stretching 
from  the  Cascade  Mountains  eastward  two  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  to  the  Blue  Mountains.  The  rivers 
which  enter  into  the  Columbia  from  the  north  in 
Middle  Oregon  are,  Spokane  River  and  Louis 
River;  from  the  south,  Des  Chutes,  Baker  River, 
John  Day's  River,  Umatilla,  Powder,  and  Walla 
Walla  Rivers.  Eastern  Oregon,  as  the  territory 
was  originally  bounded,  runs  eastwardly  from  the 
Blue  Mountains  to  the  foot  of  the  Rockies. 

Oregon  has  three  distinct  climates,  which  are 
determined  by  its  mountain  ranges.  The  climate 
of  Western  Oregon  is  mild  and  humid.  Roses  and 
strawberries  are  in  bloom,  and  the  grass  is  green 
all  through  the  winter.  The  thermometer  is  sel- 
dom more  than  90  degrees  Fahrenheit  in  the  sum- 
mer, nor  lower  than  20  degrees  in  the  winter.  Mid- 
dle Oregon  is  high  table-land,  unprotected  from 
the  northern  cold.  It  is  intensely  cold  in  winter, 
and  terrifically  hot  in  summer.  The  climate  of 
Eastern  Oregon  is  like  that  of  the  Middle,  only 
more  so. 

The  average  summer  weather  of  Western 
Oregon  is  67  degrees,  and  the  winter  weather 
46  degrees.  The  isotherm  of  Portland  in  lati- 
tude 46.20  north  is  that  of  Charleston,  S.  C,  in 
latitude  32.20  degrees,  nine  hundred  miles  south. 


128     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

The  cause  of  this  unusually  mild  climate  of  West- 
ern Oregon  is  twofold.  The  Gulf  Stream  of  the 
Pacific  runs  close  to  the  shore  in  Oregon,  and  the 
Cascade  Mountains  protect  Western  Oregon  from 
the  arctic  blasts  of  winter. 

Oregon  is  an  exceptionally  fine  country  for 
camp-meetings.  From  May  to  November  scarcely 
any  rain  falls.  In  fourteen  years'  residence  in  Ore- 
gon, I  never  heard  thunder  but  once,  and  then 
that  was  very  distant  and  light.  One  season  I  at- 
tended and  conducted  seven  camp-meetings  in  as 
many  weeks.  In  all  that  time  I  slept  in  a  house 
but  one  night,  and  we  had  no  rain  at  any  of  those 
camp-meetings.  Beginning  at  a  certain  point  in 
the  Willamette  Valley  on  the  east  side  of  the  river, 
and  descending  the  valley,  I  went  with  my  wife  to 
four  camp-meetings,  and  then,  crossing  over  to  the 
west  side  of  the  valley,  I  ascended  the  river,  and 
held  three  more.  Mrs.  Pearne  and  myself  attended 
all  these  seven  camp-meetings.  We  carried  our 
tent  and  clothing,  including  bedding,  in  a  two-horse 
open  buggy,  drawn  by  two  horses.  We  carried  our 
tent  in  the  buggy,  and  the  tent-pole  we  fastened 
to  the  front  and  rear  axles,  the  pole  extending 
behind  the  buggy.  We  pitched  and  occupied  our 
own  tent.  The  people  furnished  us  our  food,  and 
we  furnished  the  transportation  of  tent  and  bed- 
ding. The  camp-meetings  were  usually  seasons  of 
great  power  and  blessing.  Probably  two  hundred 
persons  professed  conversion  during  the  season  in 
which  I  held  these  seven  meetings  described.  The 
people  attending  and   sustaining  the   camp-meet- 


CAMP-MEETINGS.  1 29 

ings  were  very  kind  and  hospitable.  The  climate 
was  usually  so  dry  and  cool,  that  quarters  of  fresh 
beef  hung  up  in  the  trees,  and  protected  from  the 
yellow-jackets  by  cheesecloth,  would  remain  fresh 
and  wholesome  for  two  weeks  at  a  time. 

Several  peculiar  camp-meeting  incidents  are 
recorded.  On  one  occasion,  when  I  was  preaching 
at  a  camp-meeting  in  Long  Tom,  in  Lane  County, 
on  the  Sabbath,  a  man  went  deranged.  He  or- 
dered me  down  from  the  pulpit,  that  he  might 
preach.  I  expostulated  with  him.  He  became 
angry,  and  plucked  off  his  shoes  and  pelted  me. 
His  aim  was  so  good,  and  his  force  in  hurling  the 
shoes  at  me  was  so  great,  that  I  had  to  do  some 
expert  dodging  to  save  my  face  from  mutilation. 
Then  he  ran  up  into  the  stand  to  take  me  out. 
Strong  men  seized  and  bound  him,  and  carried  him 
out.  There  was  no  lunatic  hospital  in  Oregon.  A 
log  pen  was  made  for  him,  into  which  he  was  put. 
He  was  fed  and  cared  for  in  that  pen ;  but  he  died 
in  a  few  months. 

Usually,  at  all  our  camp-meetings,  people  of 
all  the  different  denominations  would  attend.  They 
seemed  to  feel  as  free  and  as  much  at  home  as  the 
Methodists  did.  One  could  not  determine  from 
general  observation  who  were  Methodists,  and  who 
were  not.  At  a  camp-meeting  I  held  in  Rock 
Creek,  Clackamas  County,  there  were  a  large  num- 
ber of  persons  other  than  Methodists  present. 
They  were  urged  by  me  to  make  themselves  entirely 
at  home,  which  they  appeared  to  do.  One  morning 
I  took  a  walk  before  breakfast.  Half  a  mile  from 
9 


130     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

the  meeting  I  found  a  man  milking  in  his  kraal,  or 
cow-pen,  whom  I  had  not  seen  at  the  meeting.  I 
entered  into  conversation  with  him,  about  as  fol- 
lows: "I  do  n't  think  I  have  seen  you  at  our  camp- 
meeting  up  above  here."  "I  presume  not,"  said 
he;  "I  never  go  to  such  places;  they  are  about  the 
last  places  I  would  attend."  "Why  not?"  I  in- 
quired. He  replied,  "I  do  n't  believe  in  them."  I 
said,  "Perhaps  you  do  not  profess  religion?"  "O 
yes,  I  do,"  said  he.  "Of  what  Church  are  you  a 
member?"  I  asked.  "Of  the  Baptist  Church,"  said 
he.  "But,"  said  I,  "there  are  several  Baptist  fam- 
ilies camped  up  here  at  our  meeting."  "They  are 
not  my  kind  of  Baptists,"  said  he.  "What  kind  of 
a  Baptist  Church  is  yours?"  I  inquired.  He  an- 
swered, "It  is  a  Two-seed  Baptist  Church,  or  a  Two 
Principle  Baptist  Church,  as  they  are  sometimes 
called."  "Explain  what  you  mean  by  Two-seed 
Baptists,"  said  I.  This  was  his  answer :  "The  Lord 
has  a  seed  and  the  devil  has  a  seed.  The  devil's 
seed  are  goats.  The  Lord's  seed  are  sheep;  and 
there  is  no  mixing  them  'are  breeds.  The  devil  has 
been  trying  to  make  goats  out  of  the  Lord's  sheep 
for  six  thousand  years,  and  he  has  never  made  a 
single  goat  out  of  a  sheep.  And  at  your  camp- 
meetings  and  protracted-meetings  ministers  of  the 
gospel  have  been  trying  to  make  sheep  out  of  the 
devil's  goats,  and  they  never  made  a  sheep  out  of  a 
goat  yet."  I  had  never  before  met  that  variety  of 
Baptists.  I  said  to  him:  "I  see  plainly  why  you 
are  called  Two-seed  Baptists;  but  I  think  there  is 


A    "TWO-SEED"    BAPTIST.  131 

another  name  which  would  be  quite  as  appropriate. 
I  should  call  you  Hard-shell  Baptists.  You  do  not 
hold  Sunday-schools,  I  suppose?"  "No,"  said  he. 
"You  do  not  try  to  have  sinners  converted  into 
saints,  do  you?"  Again  he  replied  in  the  negative. 
"Do  you,"  said  I,  "send  missionaries  to  convert  the 
heathen?"  To  this  the  reply  was  negative.  Again 
I  asked  him,  "Do  you  have  Sunday-schools  to  teach 
your  children  the  Bible?"  To  this  he  replied,  "No." 
Once  more  I  asked  him,  "Do  you  never  hold  re- 
vival-meetings or  protracted-meetings?"  And  as 
before,  he  answered  in  the  negative.  I  said :  "My 
friend,  I  do  n't  think  you  have  given  your  Church 
the  right  name;  you  should  call  it  the  Hard-shell 
Baptist  Church." 

I  held  a  camp-meeting  once  in  the  forks  of  the 
Santiam.  We  had  been  somewhat  annoyed  by  the 
Campbellites,  who  denied  conversion  by  faith  and 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  who  taught  baptismal  regen- 
eration, or  conversion  by  baptism.  Weeks  before 
the  meeting  I  announced  far  and  wide  that  I  would 
preach  on  salvation  by  faith  as  being  the  Bible 
teaching  on  that  subject,  rather  than  salvation  by 
water  baptism  or  immersion,  as  held  by  the  Camp- 
bellites. My  sermon  lasted  three  hours  and  a  half. 
Beginning  at  eleven  o'clock  A.  M.,  I  finished  my 
discourse  at  2.30  o'clock.  Strange  as  it  may  seem, 
I  held  the  audience  for  all  that  time  without  a  break. 
We  heard  less  about  salvation  by  water  after  that 
sermon  than  we  had  been  accustomed  to  hear 
before. 


132     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

At  each  of  these  seven  camp-meetings  there 
were  conversions.  The  number  of  professed  con- 
versions in  all  of  them  was  something  over  one 
hundred  and  fifty. 

I  was  once  invited  to  go  to  Sublimity  and  hold 
a  service,  and  baptize  the  child  of  the  plucky  little 
German  class-leader.  He  also  desired  that  I  would 
preach  on  the  subject  of  infant  baptism;  for  all  his 
neighbors  were  Campbellites,  who  pooh-poohed 
and  ridiculed  infant  baptism,  and  he  wanted  to  have 
a  logical  justification  for  his  cause.  I  made  an  ap- 
pointment for  that  purpose.  It  was  announced 
that  I  would  preach  on  Infant  Baptism,  and  baptize 
a  child.  A  large  crowd  gathered.  I  preached  faith- 
fully and  strongly  on  the  subject.  Two  Campbellite 
women  found  it  too  strong  for  them.  One  of  them 
said  to  her  sister  present,  "Did  you  ever  hear  tell 
of  the  like  of  that?"  "No,"  was  the  reply.  "And 
that  is  not  all,"  said  sister  Number  2 ;  "I  won't  hear 
any  more  of  that  kind  of  talk."  They  then  both 
left  the  church.  The  house  being  an  unchinked  log 
building,  they  stood  outside  and  kept  up  a  chatter- 
ing, which  somewhat  disturbed  the  people  present. 
I  baptized  the  child,  and  then  I  inquired  if  any  one 
present  desired  to  make  any  announcement;  for 
we  were  accustomed  in  that  country  to  make  an- 
nouncements at  all  religious  meetings,  and  an- 
nounce religious  meetings  of  all  denominations  at 
one  another's  meetings.  A  Campbellite  preacher, 
who  had  been  accustomed  to  preach  in  that  school- 
house,  arose,  and  said,  "Four  weeks  from  to-day 
I  shall  preach  the  gospel  here,  I  shall."     Said  I, 


A    CAMPBELLITE   PREACHER.  1 33 

"Brother,  you  do  n't  mean  to  say  that  you.  have  not 
had  the  gospel  preached  here  to-day?"  "I  say 
nothing  about  that,"  said  he;  "but  I  do  say  that 
four  weeks  from  to-day  I  will  preach  the  gospel 
here,  so  I  will."  The  class-leader  seemed  to  think 
it  was  his  turn,  and  he  observed,  "If  you  do,  it  will 
be  the  first  time." 


CHAPTER  X. 

MY  district  required  twelve  weeks  of  travel  four 
times  a  year.  I  lived  in  Salem.  I  had  six 
appointments  north  of  Salem,  and  as  many  south. 
I  had  one  rest-week  each  quarter,  making  twenty- 
two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  travel  in  a  year.  I 
traveled  on  muleback  or  horseback  on  the  southern 
half  of  my  district ;  by  steamer,  canoe,  and  horse  on 
the  northern  half.  The  work  was  sufficiently  la- 
borious, and  quite  full  enough  of  exposure,  hard- 
ships, and  peril. 

The  engraving  on  the  opposite  page  represents 
my  faithful  servant  and  bearer,  who  carried  me  on 
my  long  and  toilsome  journeys  for  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  miles.  Her  name  was  Cynthian.  My 
friend,  Hamilton  Campbell,  one  of  the  early  lay 
missionaries,  had  lost  one  of  his  noble  span  of 
matched  mules.  He  kindly  sold  me  the  surviving 
animal.  I  paid  him  one  hundred  and  sixty  dollars. 
Cynthian  was  sixteen  hands  high;  young,  spirited, 
yet  dependable,  docile,  fleet,  easy-gaited.  In  the 
long  summer  days,  lasting  from  four  o'clock  A.  M. 
until  eight  o'clock  P.  M.,  I  often  rode  her  from 
seventy  to  eighty  miles  in  a  day.  In  all  my  travel 
on  her,  on  the  Oregon  District,  as  presiding  elder, 
I  have  ridden  many  thousands  of  miles.  My  full 
equipment  for  these  long  rides,  in  which  I  never 
carried  an  umbrella,  and  never  was  wet  by  the  rain, 
may  be  thus  described :  The  broad-brimmed  hat 

134 


TRAVELING    OUTFIT.  1 35 

was  covered  with  oiled  silk,  and  so  was  waterproof. 
The  next  piece  of  top-gear  is  the  poncho,  or  Mex- 
ican serape,  a  waterproof  shawl,  with  a  slit  in  the 
middle,  through  which  the  rider's  head  was 
put;  and  this  covered  his  whole  body,  and  fully 
protected  it  from  wind  and  weather.  The  indis- 
pensable portmanteau,  or  saddlebags,  is  covered 
from  view  by  the  poncho.  The  pommel  of  the  sad- 
dle rises  high  in  front,  and  the  kentil,  or  rear  part  of 
the  saddle,  is  also  high ;  so  making  a  well-fitting  seat 
for  the  rider.  From  the  pommel  is  suspended  the 
invariable  lariat,  a  rawhide  rope  of  perhaps  forty 
feet,  and  by  which  the  mule  or  horse  is  staked  out 
for  his  feed  of  grass.  The  large  wooden  stirrup 
makes  an  easy  rest  for  the  foot,  and  the  tapidary, 
or  front  cover  of  the  stirrup,  keeps  the  foot  from 
going  too  far  through  the  stirrup,  and  protects  the 
foot  from  the  rain.  The  mule  and  I  were  close 
friends.  She  would  always  whicker  for  me  when 
I  approached  her;  and  when  I  lay  out  upon  the 
plains,  with  blankets  beneath  and  over  me,  and  the 
saddlebags  for  my  head,  after  she  had  filled  herself 
with  the  grass  meal,  she  would  come  and  lie  down 
beside  me,  and  bear  me  company  through  the  night. 
When  I  attended  the  General  Conference  I  parted 
with  her  reluctantly;  but  I  sold  her,  for  fear  she 
would  be  stolen  in  my  absence.  I  received  four 
hundred  dollars  in  gold  for  her. 

In  December,  1852,  I  had  to  escort  a  mission- 
ary with  his  wife  and  child,  and  a  lay  brother  and 
his  wife  and  child,  and  a  sea  captain,  from  Port- 
land to  Olympia.     We  took  steamer  at  Portland 


I36      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

in  the  morning,  and  went  to  the  mouth  of  the  Cow- 
litz River.  Before  starting,  I  went  into  the  bakery 
at  Portland,  and  laid  in  two  or  three  loaves  and 
some  crackers  and  cheese.  We  also  carried  our 
blankets  and  wraps.  It  was  snowing  heavily  all  the 
way  down  the  river,  and  at  Cowlitz  it  had  reached 
a  depth  of  six  or  eight  inches.  We  chartered  a 
whale-boat  and  a  crew  of  four  Indians,  and  started 
up  the  rapid  river,  propelling  our  boat  with  oars 
and  poles.  By  dusk  we  reached  a  deserted  bach- 
elor's cabin  on  the  river  bank.  We  learned  by  the 
Indians  of  a  potato-patch  near  the  dwelling.  We 
sent  the  Indians  to  dig  potatoes,  which,  with  sharp 
sticks,  they  gathered.  We  washed  them  in  the 
river,  and  roasted  them  in  the  ashes.  These,  with 
the  stores  I  procured,  made  the  supper  and  break- 
fast for  ten  adults  and  two  infants. 

At  noon  we  reached  Gardner's,  or  "Hard-bread," 
as  he  was  called,  because  his  biscuits  were  so  hard. 
I  carried  home  one  of  his  biscuits,  which  were  blue 
in  color  because  of  the  blue  pod  in  the  wheat,  which 
the  screen  of  the  miller  did  not  take  out.  The  bis- 
cuits were  sodden  and  heavy  and  hard.  One  of 
them  shot  from  a  cannon  would  kill  a  man  as  dead 
as  any  leaden  or  iron  ball. 

The  snow  was  deep,  and  deepening.  The 
weather  was  cold.  The  hotel  was  cheerless.  It 
would  not  do  for  the  ladies  and  babies  to  stay  at  the 
hotel,  for  it  was  too  open  and  cold.  They  could 
not  go  through  from  Gardner's  to  Olympia,  fifty 
miles,  because  the  horses  were  all  at  the  other  end 
of  the  line.     I  learned  that  Mr.  Jackson,  a  farmer 


LOST  ON   THE   PRAIRIE.  1 37 

settler  on  the  road  eight  miles  towards  Olympia, 
had  a  comfortable  house,  and  entertained  travelers. 
Three  and  a  half  miles  away  was  a  factory  of  the 
Hudson  Bay  Company.  The  chief  factor  of  the 
company,  Dr.  McLaughlin,  at  Oregon  City,  had 
often  told  me,  if  I  was  ever  in  want  of  anything 
which  the  company  could  supply,  to  call  on  them 
for  it,  and  I  should  have  it.  I  learned,  on  inquiry, 
that  they  kept  some  fifty  or  sixty  horses  and  sad- 
dles as  well,  and  I  walked  out  to  the  factory  in  com- 
pany with  Captain  Harland.  The  snow  was  knee- 
deep  and  getting  deeper,  and  the  mercury  was  fall- 
ing. I  concluded  I  would  get  horses  and  saddles 
for  the  men  and  their  families,  and  send  them  to 
Jackson's,  where  they  could  remain  until  the  con- 
ditions were  more  favorable.  This  was  my  errand 
to  the  Hudson  Bay  Company's  farm.  We  had  gone 
within  half  a  mile  of  the  place,  and  were  kept  in 
the  right  direction  by  a  lane  or  road,  which  termi- 
nated half  a  mile  short  of  our  objective  point ;  and 
that  half  mile  was  prairie,  with  untrodden  snow 
eighteen  inches  deep.  It  was  almost  dark.  The 
house  at  the  end  of  the  lane  was  the  home  of  a 
Catholic  priest.  I  called  in  to  inquire  my  way.  He 
said  it  was  half  a  mile  in  the  same  direction  as  the 
lane.  I  told  him  as  soon  as  it  became  dark  we 
would  be  unable  to  see  our  way,  and  we  were  in 
danger  of  being  lost.  I  asked  him  to  permit  us  to 
stay  with  him  until  morning.  He  declined.  We 
started  for  the  farms;  night  came  down  upon  us, 
and  we  were  lost.  We  wandered  in  that  prairie 
for  two  hours.     Fortunatelv,   some  Indians  were 


I38      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

passing,  whom  we  hailed.  They  were  going  to  the 
farms.  We  followed  their  tracks,  and  reached  our 
destination.  We  knocked  for  admittance.  The 
agent  of  the  company  refused  to  keep  us,  and  re- 
fused to  furnish  the  horses.  I  told  him  we  would 
not  leave  there,  for  we  had  already  been  lost  two 
hours  between  the  priest's  house  and  the  farms. 
Then  he  admitted  us,  and  seated  us  in  a  cold  room. 
After  insisting  on  the  horses  for  the  travelers,  we 
were  promised  them  on  payment  of  sixteen  dollars, 
and  two  dollars  extra  for  the  horses  we  would  ride 
back  to  the  hotel  with.  We  went  to  bed  supper- 
less;  i.  c,  we  lay  down  on  the  floor  in  a  cold 
room  and  covered  ourselves  with  blankets,  and 
slept  till  morning,  when  we  left.  I  sent  my  guests  to 
Jackson's,  where  they  were  comfortable,  and  in  a 
few  days  they  pursued  their  way  to  Olympia.  I 
hastened  back  home,  for  the  indications  were  that 
the  rivers  wrould  close  up. 

From  Oregon  City  I  went  by  steamer  to  Cham- 
poeg,  the  boat  breaking  the  ice.  At  Butteville  the 
boat  could  go  no  farther.  With  my  saddlebags 
and  blankets  on  my  shoulders,  I  walked  through 
the  snow,  breaking  the  roads,  twenty-six  miles, 
reaching  home  at  ten  o'clock  P.  M.,  December  25, 
1852,  as  tired  as  a  man  could  be.  I  had  eaten  noth- 
ing since  early  morning.  My  weariness  and  hunger 
had  been  very  severe. 

About  a  month  after  reaching  Oregon,  I  had 
occasion,  on  one  Saturday,  to  travel  thirty-five 
miles  across  the  country,  to  hold  a  meeting  at  Dim- 
mock's,  on  the  French  prairie.    I  went  to  the  Willa- 


GETTING    THE   DIRECTION.  1 39 

mette  River,  expecting  to  find  a  ferry-boat  at 
Champoeg,  ten  miles  beyond  which  was  Dim- 
mock's.  But  the  boat  had  been  washed  down  the 
river  in  a  freshet.  I  had  to  go  back  from  the  ferry 
and  up  the  river  six  miles,  to  find  De  Gere's  ferry. 
Attempting  this,  I  was  lost  in  a  fog.  I  met  a  cow- 
boy driving  his  cows  to  pasture.  He  piloted  me  to 
the  house  of  a  German,  named  Fulquarts.  I  in- 
quired of  him  my  way  to  the  ferry.  He  directed 
me  thus :  "Veil,  den,  you  see  mine  farm  down  dere 
in  de  pottom"  (an  inclosure  of  an  acre  or  two  for 
a  truck-patch).  "You  vill  take  dat  farm  up  on  your 
right  hand,  und  dat  vill  bring  you  to  von  ferry  bad 
slough ;  dere  you  had  petter  get  down  and  lead 
your  horse,  or  you  vill  mire  down  mit  him ;  den  you 
vill  take  anoder  farm  up  on  your  right  hand,  and 
turn  anoder  corner  down  on  your  left  hand,  and  dat 
vill  pring  you  to  de  ferry."  The  ferryman  was  a 
half-breed  Indian.  I  had  to  inquire  my  way  to 
Dimmock's.  I  asked  the  Indian  if  he  could  speak 
English.  I  could  not  make  him  understand  me.  I 
said,  "What  is  your  name?"  He  said,  "Icta,"  which 
means  "what?"  I  said,  "Is  your  name  Icta?"  He 
said,  "Wake,"  which'  means  "No."  Then  I  said, 
"Your  name  is  Icta  Wake?"  He  laughed  at  my 
verdancy.  I  could  learn  nothing  from  him.  So 
I  pushed  on,  traveling  three  or  four  miles,  fording 
places  of  deep  water.  At  last  I  came  to  a  white- 
washed house,  surrounded  by  a  peach-orchard.  I 
hailed.  An  Indian  woman  came  to  the  door.  I 
said,  "Who  lives  here?"  She  answered,  "Lucy." 
Supposing  she  had  given  me  her  Christian  name, 


140     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

I  inquired,  "Is  your  husband's  name  'Lucy?'  " 
"Nawitka,"  said  she.  "Then  your  name  is  Lucy 
Nawitka?"  She  understood  me,  and  she  could 
speak  English.  She  laughed  at  my  blunder,  and 
said,  "My  husband's  name  is  Lucea."  Nawitka  is 
the  Indian  word  for  Yes,  or  Certainly.  I  asked  her 
the  way  to  some  American's  house.  She  said  if  I 
kept  on  I  would  reach  Champoeg  in  a  mile  and  a 
half;  and  then  I  would  find  Dr.  Newell,  an  Amer- 
ican. Here  I  staid  all  night ;  but  I  had  eaten  noth- 
ing since  morning,  and  I  went  to  bed  supperless. 
The  next  day  the  Doctor  piloted  me  to  Dimmock's, 
which  I  reached  at  church-time. 

I  once  attended  a  quarterly-meeting  when  the 
floods  were  out;  for  we  sometimes  had  very  serious 
floods  there.  I  was  water-bound  at  Marysville, 
forty  miles  from  home.  Here  I  boarded  a  steamer, 
tied  my  mule  in  the  bow  of  the  steamer,  and  rode 
to  Salem.  Then  I  struck  out  for  the  hills  to  head 
the  streams,  where  I  could  ford  them,  on  my  way  to 
Oregon  City,  forty  miles  away.  Bear  Creek  was 
out  of  its  banks ;  for  twenty  or  thirty  rods  each  side 
of  the  bridge  there  was  water  to  wade  or  swim 
through  to  and  from  the  bridge.  The  bridge  was 
the  only  visible  object  before  me.  I  took  my  sad- 
dlebags on  my  shoulders  and  slung  my  blankets  on 
my  back,  and  got  on  my  knees  on  the  mule's  saddle. 
The  bridge  was  a  pole  bridge;  i.  e.,  fir  poles  from 
four  to  six  inches  thick  were  resting  on  these  string 
pieces.  The  water  was  just  up  to  the  cross-poles. 
I  stepped  off  my  mule  on  to  the  bridge,  and,  un- 
fastening my  lariat,  said  to  the  mule,  "Now,  Cyn- 


CROSSING  A   SWOLLEN  CREEK'.  141 

thian,  you  must  be  very  careful,  or  you  will  get 
into  the  creek,  and  you  will  have  to  swim  out." 
She  seemed  to  understand  me,  and  she  did  go  care- 
fully. Her  weight  and  mine  sprung  the  stringer 
pieces,  and  the  cross-poles  drifted  off  from  under 
her.  She  sank  down  astride  the  middle  stringer.  I 
pushed  my  foot  against  her  neck,  and  she  fell  off 
her  perch  into  the  creek.  I  gave  her  rope,  holding 
on  to  the  end  of  it,  and  brought  her  round  to  me, 
remounted  her,  and  rode  out,  and  went  on  my  way 
to  my  destination. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

1HAVE  spoken  of  sloughs  or  swales.  These  were 
numerous,  and  sometimes  dangerous  to  cross. 
I  came  to  one,  which  looked  so  formidable  that  I 
rode  back  some  distance  to  inquire  of  a  settler  how 
to  cross  the  slough  safely.  He  said:  "It  is  pretty 
bad.  But  you  go  to  the  worst-looking  part,  and 
you  will  see  the  ears  of  dead  mules  sticking  up. 
You  follow  that  sign,  and  ride  over  on  the  backs 
of  the  dead  mules,  and  you  can  cross  that  way." 
Of  course  he  was  joking.  Another  man  came  to 
a  bad-looking  slough.  A  boy  on  the  hither  side 
was  cutting  wood.  A  dialogue  ensued.  "Boy,  is 
that  a  safe  slough  to  cross?"  "O  yes."  "Has  it  a 
good,  hard  bottom?"  "O  yes,"  said  the  boy.  The 
man  essayed  to  cross.  His  horse  mired.  He  had 
to  dismount  and  wade  out.  He  was  very  angry, 
for  he  thought  the  boy  had  deceived  him.  He 
cursed  the  boy  roundly.  "Why  did  you  lie  to  me? 
Did  n't  you  say  the  slough  has  a  good,  hard  bot- 
tom?" "O  yes,"  said  the  boy,  and  then  applying  his 
thumb  to  his  nose,  with  the  other  digits  erected,  he 
said,  "O  yes,  the  bottom  is  good  and  hard,  but  you 
did  not  get  down  to  it." 

I  have  mentioned  the  German's  specific  direc- 
tions to  me  how  to  find  the  ferry.  They  were  suffi- 
ciently plain.  I  often  found  Americans  who  would 
direct  me  thus:  "Well,  stranger,  you  will  follow  this 
trail  you  are  on  a  right  smart,  till  you  come  to 

142 


SOCIAL    CUSTOMS.  1 43 

where  it  forks;  you  will  take  the  right-hand  eend, 
and  follow  that  a  right  smart,  till  you  come  to  the 
second  fork;  you  will  take  the  left-hand  eend,  and 
follow  that  till  you  come  to  a  cabin,  and  there  you 
will  do  well  to  inquire."  Often  the  cabin  would  be 
a  bachelor's  home,  and  the  occupant  absent  miles 
away,  and  no  other  cabin  in  sight.  1  always  carried 
a  pocket  compass,  but  for  which  we  should  have 
had  serious  trouble  in  rinding  our  way. 

WEDDINGS  AND  FUNERALS. 

Sometimes  the  character  of  people  can  be 
learned  by  knowing  their  customs  at  funerals  and 
weddings.  It  will  be  found  amusing,  if  not  in- 
structive, to  consider  the  following  Oregon  exam- 
ples, and  a  few,  also,  furnished  from  other  periods 
and  places.  In  Oregon  and  in  the  South,  from 
which  many  of  the  earlier  immigrants  had  come  to 
Oregon,  it  was  customary  for  funeral  sermons  to  be 
preached,  months,  and  even  years,  after  the  deaths 
and  burials  of  the  deceased  had  occurred.  In  more 
than  a  few  instances  I  have  conducted  funerals 
when  the  second  wife  or  the  second  husband,  as  the 
case  may  have  been,  sat  with  the  mourners  at  the 
funeral  of  the  first  wife  or  husband,  respectively. 
And,  really,  it  sometimes  seemed  to  me  that  the 
second  wife  or  husband  was  the  most  real  and  seri- 
ous mourner  of  the  whole  group.  This  may  have 
been  imagination  on  my  part ;  but  I  am  candidly 
giving  my  actual  impressions  at  the  time. 

The  Donation  Land  Law  of  Oregon,  enacted 
August   14,   1848,  in  the  Act  of  Congress  organ- 


144     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

izing  the  Territory  of  Oregon,  provided  for  the  gift 
of  three  hundred  and  twenty  acres  to  each  adult 
settler  in  Oregon  then  being  single  and  living  in 
Oregon  at  the  time  of  the  passage  of  the  law,  or  at 
any  time  after  the  passage  of  the  law  up  to  Decem- 
ber i,  185 1.  If  married,  the  law  gave  to  each  of 
the  parties,  husband  and  wife,  a  half  section  of  land, 
making  the  donation  to  both  a  full  section  of  a  mile 
square.  As  the  time-limit  of  the  land  law  ap- 
proached, the  matrimonial  business  was  very  act- 
ive; and  it  was  not  too  scrupulous  as  to  the  fitness, 
in  age  or  otherwise,  of  the  parties  marrying.  It  was 
not  unusual  for  old  bachelors  and  widowers  of  forty 
or  more  years  to  be  married  to  girls  entirely  too 
young  to  contract  and  enter  into  marriage  relations. 
Reaching  Oregon  in  October,  1851,  this  feature 
of  the  subject  was  strongly  impressed  upon  my 
attention.,  Soon  after  my  arrival  in  Oregon,  I 
formed  the  acquaintance  of  an  interesting  girl  of 
apparently  eight  or  nine  years,  whom  I  caressed 
and  petted  as  a  child.  A  few  weeks  later,  I  saw  her 
in  another  part  of  the  country  from  where  I  first 
met  her.  I  renewed  my  attentions  to  her  as  a  child. 
I  inquired,  "Have  you  left  home  to  attend  school?" 
"La,  no !"  was  her  reply ;  "I  'm  married  !"  Amazed, 
I  let  her  down  from  my  knee,  saying:  "I  thought 
you  were  a  child.  How  old  are  you?"  The  answer 
came,  "I  am  ten,  going  on  eleven."  Before  that 
child  was  eighteen  she  had  been  several  times  mar- 
ried and  divorced. 

In  Washington  Territory,  near  the  mouth  of 
the  Cowlitz,  I  married  a  couple,  at  a  quarterly- 


A   FASHIONABLE    WEDDING.  1 45 

meeting  held  on  that  occasion,  in  a  Roman  Cath- 
olic church-building.  When  I  asked  the  man  the 
usual  question :  "Wilt  thou  have  this  woman  to  be 
thy  lawful  wedded  wife,  to  live  together  after  God's 
ordinance  in  the  holy  estate  of  marriage  so  long  as 
ye  both  shall  live?"  quick  and  strong  and  percus- 
sively  he  replied,  "You  bet  yer!"  The  explosion 
and  force  were  terrific.  The  audience  were  con- 
vulsed at  the  eager  and  novel  way  of  his  answer- 
ing. I  looked  serious,  and  said,  "Did  you  mean 
yes  by  your  answer?"  He  responded  affirmatively. 
The  wedding  proceeded  to  its  conclusion. 

In  the  fifties  I  attended  a  large  "swell"  wed- 
ding. With  the  parties  standing  before  me,  I  called 
for  objections,  if  any  could  be  alleged,  why  the 
parties  named  should  not  be  united  in  holy  mar- 
riage. A  brother  present  replied,  "I  object!" 
"What,"  I  inquired,  "is  your  objection?"  He  an- 
swered, "I  ant  older  than  she,  and  I  have  a  right  to 
be  married  first."  I  said  to  the  bride-elect,  "Will 
you  wait  a  moment  until  I  shall  have  married  your 
brother?"  She  assented.  I  said  to  her  brother, 
"Bring  forward  your  bride-elect,  and  I  will  marry 
you  first."  (There  was  no  license  required  then.) 
He  said,  "No  one  will  have  me."  Several  young 
ladies  stepped  out  in  a  row,  and  said  to  him,  "Take 
your  choice."  He  looked  at  them  for  a  moment, 
and  then  said  to  me,  "I  withdraw  the  objection." 
I  said :  "You  have  practically  made  an  ofTer  of  your- 
self in  marriage,  and  have  been  accepted.  Unless 
you  can  render  a  reason  for  declining  to  carry  out 
your  ofifer  satisfactory  to  every  one  of  these  young 


146      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

ladies,  I  can  not  release  you."  The  reason  he  as- 
signed, and  which  the  ladies  accepted  as  satisfac- 
tory, was  this:  "I  fear  if  I  should  marry  one  of 
them,  the  others  might  die  of  broken  hearts."  The 
objection  of  the  brother  being  withdrawn,  his  sis- 
ter's marriage  ceremony  proceeded  to  its  close. 
My  fee,  on  this  occasion,  was  a  fifty-dollar  gold 
coin.  It  was  octagonal  in  form,  and  weighed  the 
same  amount  in  Troy  ounces  as  two  and  one-half 
double  eagles.    It  was  called  a  slug. 

I  attended  a  wedding  in  Hillsboro,  Ohio,  for 
which  I  received,  constructively,  an  immense  fee. 
The  groom  expectant  engaged  me  to  wait  at  my 
home  for  him  from  twelve  noon  to  one  P.  M. 
This  I  did.  At  one  he  came,  and  requested  another 
hour's  extension.  It  was  granted.  At  two,  he  re- 
quested a  third  hour's  extension,  which,  also,  was 
admitted.  Before  three  he  was  present  with  his 
bride-elect.  After  marrying  him,  he  requested  that 
we  should  furnish  him  some  music.  We  sang  for 
him,  the  organ  leading,  "Vain  delusive  world, 
adieu,"  and  another  piece.  He  seemed  to  enjoy 
it.  On  leaving,  he  asked  what  my  charges  would 
be.  I  replied :  "I  never  make  a  charge.  I  leave  that 
to  the  parties."  As  he  passed  out,  he  said,  "Min- 
ister, I  am  ten  thousand  times  oblccgcd  to  you."  In 
New  York,  in  my  boyhood,  I  had  learned  that  every 
"thank  you"  I  received  was  worth  eighteen  and 
three-fourths  cents.  I  multiplied  the  value  of  a 
"thank  you"  by  ten  thousand.  By  that  rule,  applied 
according  to  arithmetic,  he  had  paid  me  in  "thank 
you's"  eighteen  hundred  and  seventy-five  dollars. 


COLORED    WEDDING.  1 47 

Before  going  to  Oregon,  I  married  a  couple  in 
New  York  State.  In  doing  this,  I  seriously  ques- 
tioned whether  I  might  not  have  rendered  myself 
liable  for  cruelty  to  animals.  At  my  instance,  as 
the  bride  was  unusually  long  in  dressing  her  hair, 
the  man  to  be  married  said  to  his  espoused,  "Sally, 
the  minister  would  like  you  to  make  more  haste.'' 
With  a  savage  fierceness,  she  turned  to  him,  and 
said,  "Joe !  you  shut  up,  or  I  will  slap  you."  When 
it  is  considered  that  she  was  an  Amazon,  and  he  a 
wizened,  dwarfish  man,  the  situation  can  be  im- 
agined. Having  no  personal  fear  of  her  power,  I 
said  to  her,  "If  you  wish  me  to  marry  you  to  this 
man,  you  must  be  ready  within  two  minutes. "  This 
was  effectual.  She  put  up  her  long,  luxuriant, 
golden  hair,  and  was  married.  As  the  groom  ac- 
companied me  to  the  gate,  and  handed  me  a  dollar 
for  my  fee,  he  remarked :  "She  does  n't  hand- 
some much ;  but  the  way  she  has  got  to  hoe  my 
potatoes  and  corn  is  a  caution."  I  was  relieved. 
The  match  was  more  nearly  even,  with  his  grit  over 
against  her  size  and  her  spirit,  than  I  had  feared. 

In  Binghamton,  N.  Y.,  I  married  my  first  col- 
ored couple.  This  was  an  "upper-ten"  affair,  as  a 
colored  wedding.  Those  present  were  all  mulattoes. 
After  marrying  them  and  wishing  them  joy,  I  said 
to  the  groom,  "Now  you  may  salute  your  wife." 
He  stepped  aside,  with  a  most  polite  bow,  saying, 
"After  you,  minister."  Of  course,  I  politely  de- 
clined to  avail  myself  of  his  offer. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

I  HAVE  referred  to  the  jargon.  It  was  a  dialect 
common  to  settlers  and  Indians  and  half-breeds. 
It  was  easily  learned,  and  very  convenient  in  travel- 
ing in  Oregon  at  an  early  day.  A  stranger  in  Ore- 
gon could  make  his  way  through  the  country  with 
great  difficulty,  unless  he  understood  the  Chinook 
vocabulary.  Indians  and  half-breeds  abounded  in 
Oregon.  The  Indian  words  on  the  Pacific  are  far 
more  soft  and  liquid  than  the  Indian  words  on  the 
Atlantic;  and  they  are  also  equally  significant. 
Onondaga;  Niagara,  as  pronounced  in  the  days  of 
the  Revolutionary  fathers;  Cattaragus — Seneca 
words — are  harsh  and  guttural,  as  contrasted  with 
the  Oregon  Indian  words;  as  Umatilla,  Multno- 
mah, or  the  broad,  open  valley;  Willamette,  or  the 
long  and  crooked  river;  Yaquinna,  Yakimah,  Co- 
quille,  Molalla,  Yamhill,  Spokane,  Walla  Walla; 
Wailetpu,  pronounced  Wa-i-fotf-pu. 

Our  life  in  Oregon  contained  now  and  then  an 
amusing  incident  or  a  perilous  adventure.  I  was 
holding  a  camp-meeting  on  the  Callapooya  River, 
forty-five  miles  from  home.  A  messenger  reached 
the  camp-ground  on  Saturday  evening,  informing 
me  of  the  dangerous  illness  of  my  wife.  On  my 
long  ride  of  forty-five  miles  I  had  a  rapid,  deep,  and 
dangerous  stream  to  cross.  I  started  at  nine 
o'clock  P.  M.  For  twenty-four  miles  my  way  led 
me  over  a  pathless,  unpeopled  prairie.     I  took  a 

148 


TRAVELING   IN  OREGON.  1 49 

course,  steering  for  a  butte  beyond  the  prairie. 
After  I  had  traveled  about  six  miles  a  pack  of 
wolves  followed  me,  making  night  hideous  with 
their  bowlings,  and  making  din  and  noise  enough 
for  twoscore  of  wolves.  They  sometimes  came  so 
near  that  I  could  hear  their  breathing.  My  horse 
was  greatly  excited,  snorting  and  sometimes  shriek- 
ing with  terror.  Reaching  the  Santiam  River,  I 
tried,  by  loud  and  prolonged  calls,  to  arouse  the 
ferryman,  who  lived  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
river;  but  it  was  all  in  vain.  I  plunged  into  the 
river,  and  my  horse  swam  over  in  good  form.  I 
reached  my  home  about  half-past  three  in  the  morn- 
ing, having  made  the  distance  in  six  and  a  half 
hours,  making  my  rate  an  average  speed  of  seven 
miles  an  hour.  My  wife  was  very  ill,  and  continued 
so  for  weeks,  during  which  time  I  had  to  stay  at 
home  and  nurse  her. 

In  a  trip  from  Portland  to  Yreka,  California,  in 
an  open  buggy,  over  three  hundred  miles,  with 
Bishop  Simpson,  as  we  were  rounding  a  rocky 
point  in  Rogue  River  Valley,  where  the  river  makes 
a  short  turn,  my  horses  suddenly  jumped  forward 
and  sideways,  greatly  risking  our  going  down  a 
precipice  into  the  river.  The  cause  of  this  was  a 
sudden,  loud  rattling  by  a  rattlesnake.  The  warn- 
ing noise  startled  the  horses  and  us  as  well,  for  it 
was  very  sudden  and  very  fearful.  After  driving 
past  the  point  I  procured  a  hazel  rod,  and,  return- 
ing, dispatched  the  snake  and  cut  off  his  rattle, 
which  I  presented  to  the  bishop  as  a  trophy.  There 
were  thirteen  rattles  and  a  button,  showing  the 


150      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OE  ITINERANT   WORK. 

snake  to  be  about  fifteen  years  old.  He  was  four 
feet  long,  and  about  two  and  a  half  inches  in 
diameter. 

In  March,  1853,  Bishop  Edward  R.  Ames,  the 
first  bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  who 
came  to  Oregon,  and  held  our  first  Conference  as 
a  full  and  regularly-organized  Conference  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  visited  us.     He  re- 
arranged the  work,  making  three  districts:  Willa- 
mette River  District,  Thomas  H.  Pearne,  presiding 
elder — residence,  Salem;  Umpqua  District,  James 
H.  Wilbur,  presiding  elder;  and  Puget  Sound  Dis- 
trict, John  F.  Devore,  presiding  elder.    The  bishop 
also  appointed  me  an  agent  of  the  Missionary  Soci- 
ety of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  to  make 
a  settlement  of  the  accounts  of  the  late  superin- 
tendent, Rev.  William  Roberts,  and  to  close  up  the 
secular  business  of  the  mission.     We  thus  ceased 
to  be  a  mission.     We  became  an  integral  part  of 
the  system  and  connection  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church.    After  fourteen  years  of  tutelage,  we 
were  graduated  to  a  full-fledged  and  fully-equipped 
synod  of  Methodism.     It  was  meet,  therefore,  that 
the  property  interests  of  the  Missionary  Society 
should  be  closed  up.     These  consisted  of  certain 
educational  plants,  which  had  been  nurtured  by  the 
Missionary  Society,  and  notably  Clackamas  Female 
Seminary  in  Oregon  City,  which  was  sold,  and  the 
avails,  in  part,  turned  over  to  the  assets  of  the 
Willamette  University,  of  which  Rev.  F.  S.  Hoyt, 
a  graduate  of  the  Wesleyan  University,   Middle- 
town,  Conn. — a  son  of  one  of  the  veterans  of  the 


FRANCIS  S.   HOYT.  151 

New     Hampshire     Conference,     Rev.     Benjamin 
R.  Hoyt — was  the  president. 

Brother  Hoyt  was  an  able  administrator  of  the 
school  under  his  care.  He  was  a  strong  preacher 
and  a  wise  manager  of  those  things  within  his  pre- 
scribed sphere.  He  was  for  several  years — ten, 
probably — the  efficient  secretary  of  the  Oregon 
Annual  Conference.  The  university  grew  in  means, 
standing,  and  usefulness  during  his  incumbency. 
In  i860  he  was  elected  a  delegate  to  the  General 
Conference,  which  met  that  year  in  Buffalo,  N.  Y. 
Rev.  Alvin  F.  Waller  was  his  associate  delegate. 
Dr.  Hoyt  received  from  the  Ohio  Wesleyan  Uni- 
versity the  well-deserved  honor  of  a  degree  as 
Doctor  in  Divinity,  which  he  has  ever  since  worn 
with  marked  credit  and  distinction.  His  work  as 
a  member  of  the  Oregon  Conference  terminated 
in  i860.  He  became  a  professor  in  the  Ohio  Wes- 
leyan University,  and  a  member  of  the  North  Ohio 
Annual  Conference.  Later,  he  was  elected  ed- 
itor of  the  Western  Christian  Advocate,  an  office 
which  he  filled  with  marked  ability  for  twelve  years, 
when  he  returned,  in  1880,  to  the  active,  effective 
ranks  of  the  itinerancy,  being  presiding  elder  of 
the  West  Cleveland  District  for  six  years,  and 
then  for  six  years  more  on  the  Sandusky  District. 
From  these  twelve  years  of  active  and  laborious 
itinerant  life  he  returned  to  the  educational  work 
of  the  Church,  by  a  professorship  in  the  Baldwin 
University,  in  the  line  of  pastoral  theology.  Dr. 
Hoyt,  while  conservative  in  his  mind  and  methods, 
was  also  safely  and  thoroughly  progressive  and  up- 


152      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

to-date.  In  the  Oregon  Conference  he  signed  with 
me  a  circular  resolution  in  favor  of  lay  delega- 
tion, which  was  known  as  the  Oregon  Resolution, 
and  which  received  a  large  vote.  He  conducted  the 
Western  Christian  Advocate  with  ability  and  success. 
Our  relations  for  forty-five  years  have  always  been 
cordial  and  unbroken.  He  has  never  failed  to  com- 
mand my  respect,  confidence,  and  appreciation. 

The  episcopal  visit  of  Bishop  Ames  in  Oregon 
was  highly  appreciated  and  enjoyed  by  the  min- 
isters and  people  of  Oregon.  His  sermons  at  Salem 
and  Portland  were  popular  and  effective.  He 
showed  himself  a  wise  counselor.  He  was  clearly 
a  man  of  affairs,  and  of  large  business  ability.  In 
Salem  he  preached  a  Conference  sermon  on  Faith, 
from  the  words,  "These  are  written,  that  ye  might 
believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God ;  and 
that  believing  ye  might  have  life  through  his  name." 
(John  xx,  31.)  The  sermon  produced  a  profound 
and  permanent  impression.  He  preached  a  char- 
acteristic sermon  in  Portland,  from  the  words, 
"With  what  measure  ye  mete,  it  shall  be  measured 
unto  you  again."  When  Bishop  Ames  returned 
East,  I  accompanied  him  on  the  steamer  down  the 
Columbia  River  as  far  as  to  Astoria.  Father 
Broulier,  the  head  of  the  Jesuit  order  in  Oregon, 
was  a  passenger.  For  some  two  hours,  in  the  rear 
part  of  the  dining  saloon,  I  discussed  with  him  the 
work  of  the  Roman  Catholics  in  Oregon  as  com- 
pared with  that  of  the  Protestants.  The  bishop 
overheard  most  of  the  conversation,  although  he 
did  not  mingle  in  it.     He  said  I  held  the  Jesuit 


OREGON  PREACHERS.  1 53 

father  to  a  close  and  plain  showing  of  the  respective 
merits  and  claims  of  the  two  competing  systems 
respectively  represented  by  the  Jesuit  and  myself. 
The  organization  of  the  Annual  Conference 
came  none  too  soon.  A  large  overland  emigration 
from  the  Western  States  poured  into  Oregon. 
These  added  several  thousands  to  its  population. 
They  were  found  by  the  Methodist  ministers  sta- 
tioned in  all  parts  of  the  Territory.  Enlargement 
and  increase  came  to  our  Church.  %Churches  were 
built,  and  revivals  occurred.  Sunday-schools  were 
organized  in  many  places.  A  lieutenant  in  the 
United  States  army,  Mr.  Roberts — a  Baptist  in  his 
Church  affinities — stationed  in  Oregon,  personally 
gave  five  dollars  to  every  Sunday-school  so  organ- 
ized in  Oregon.  Some  twenty  or  thirty  Methodist 
Sunday-schools  were  thus  assisted  by  his  bounty 
in  Sunday-school  requisites  and  library  books. 
Among  the  additions  to  our  Church,  by  the  immi- 
grations of  that  and  the  following  years,  we  num- 
bered the  three  Hines  brothers  heretofore  named — 
Gustavus,  Joseph  W.,  and  Harvey  K.  were  given  to 
us.  They  all  came  from  the  Genesee  Conference. 
Gustavus,  the  elder,  had  been  one  of  the  early  mis- 
sionaries. He  and  his  wife  had  adopted  the  only 
daughter  of  Jason  Lee,  the  pioneer  projector  and 
leader  of  the  Oregon  missions.  She  came  with 
them  to  Oregon,  and  married  in  Salem.  These 
brothers  were  men  of  marked  zeal  and  ability. 
Joseph  W.  removed  to  California,  and  died  there. 
Gustavus  remained  in  Oregon,  doing  heroic  work 
for  Christ,  and  died  full  of  years  and  honor.     Har- 


154      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

vey  K.  still  remains  a  patriarch  among  his  brethren.  . 

A  large  proportion  of  the  immigration  landed 
from  the  plains  in  Southern  Oregon.  There  were 
two  brothers,  named  Royal,  with  their  families, 
from  Illinois.  One  of  them,  Rev.  William  Royal, 
was  a  member  of  one  of  the  Illinois  Conferences. 
He  and  one  of  his  sons  became  members  of  the 
Oregon  Conference.  Rev.  James  B.  Royal,  and  a 
nephew  of  his,  T.  B.  Royal,  also  became  members 
of  that  Conference.  The  latter  ran  a  career  of  great 
honor  and  usefulness,  and  a  few  years  since 
preached  his  semicentennial  sermon.  His  son, 
Rev.  Stanley  O.  Royal,  after  a  full  course  in  Drew 
Theological  Seminary,  joined  the  Cincinnati  Con- 
ference in  1877.  He  has  been  secretary  of  the  Con- 
ference eleven  years,  and  has  filled  important 
charges.  His  wife  is  a  daughter  of  Bishop  Walden. 
Crossing  the  Plains  in  1852,  they  were  in  a  large 
body  of  emigrants.  When  the  emigrant  train 
reached  that  part  of  the  Plains  where  the  Indians 
were  becoming  troublesome,  and  where  the  emi- 
grants found  the  feed  and  water  scarce,  a  majority 
of  the  party  resolved  to  travel  on  Sunday  for  their 
greater  security  and  welfare.  A  minority,  headed 
by  the  Royals,  resolved  to  rest  on  Sabbaths.  They 
separated.  The  majority  encountered  sickness  and 
drought  and  Indian  marauders,  and  reached  Ore- 
gon in  a  disastrous  condition,  and  very  late  in  the 
season,  sans  cattle,  sans  horses,  sans  wagons,  and 
came  into  Oregon  on  foot,  and  stripped  and  sore. 
The  division  led  by  the  Royals  reached  Oregon 
earlier  than  the  majority  party,  and  in  better  con- 


MINISTERIAL    WORK.  1 55 

dition.  Their  stock  and  wagons  escaped  the  loss 
and  wreck  which  came  to  the  majority  party.  It 
was  a  marked  instance  of  a  Divine  vindication  of 
observing  the  Lord's-day. 

The  work  prospered  and  prevailed  in  the  year 
following  Bishop  Ames's  presidency  in  1852.  In 
Southern  Oregon  Mr.  Wilbur  had  built  and  opened 
a  seminary,  called  the  Umpqua  Academy.  He  had 
organized  and  set  going  in  orderly  form  the  work 
in  the  Umpqua  and  Rogue  River  Valleys.  The 
deserts  and  moral  wastes  of  Southern  Oregon  were 
wearing  the  bloom  and  the  beauty  of  the  Lord's 
vineyard.  The  people  were  glad  for  the  coming 
of  the  messengers  of  gospel  peace.  The  gathering 
of  the  ministers  to  the  next  Annual  Conference 
was  with  rejoicing,  and  the  bringing  in  of  the 
sheaves  garnered  in  the  Lord's  house.  Brother 
Wilbur  was  a  very  hearty  and  earnest  worker.  His 
spirit  was  contagious.  His  associates  in  the  min- 
istry caught  the  holy  flame.  They  shouted  the  har- 
vest home  over  precious  souls  gathered  into  the 
fold  of  Christ. 

In  Puget  Sound,  Mr.  Devore  had  wrought 
prodigies  of  valor.  New  charges  had  been  formed, 
manned,  and  worked.  In  Seattle,  Steilacoom,  and 
Olympia  the  cause  had  had  uplift  and  enlargement. 
The  North  and  the  South  brought  their  joyful  tid- 
ings to  gladden  the  center,  which,  too,  had  acquired 
the  swing  of  victory.  Portland  had  received  many 
accessions.  The  Portland  Academy  and  Female 
Seminary  was  largely  attended.  Oregon  City  was 
growing  under  the  able  ministry  of  P.  G.  Buchanan, 


156      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

and  Yamhill  was  well  served  by  Nehemiah  Doane. 
Astoria  and  Clatsop  were  in  line.  Vancouver  Cir- 
cuit was  becoming  stalwart.  Salem,  under  the  pas- 
torate of  William  Roberts,  was  swinging  into  the 
line  of  victory.  Lebanon  was  enlarging.  The  San- 
tiam  Academy  was  full.  Calapooya  Circuit  was  in 
a  flame  of  revival.  La  Creole,  Santiam  Forks, 
Mary's  River,  Long  Tom,  and  Eugene  City  were 
under  vigorous  march.  Willamette  University  was 
magnificently  doing  its  great  work.  A  Bible  agent, 
Rev.  L.  C.  Phillips,  had  entered  upon  his  blessed 
service  of  disseminating  Bibles.  Isaac  Dillon  had 
come  from  Cincinnati  Conference  to  join  the  found- 
ers of  an  empire  in  laying  broad  and  deep  the  foun- 
dations of  many  generations. 

The  Conference  session  of  1854  was  held  in 
Belknap  Settlement,  in  Benton  County,  Oregon, 
fifty  miles  south  from  Salem.  Bishop  Simpson  was 
assigned  to  hold  it ;  but  he  was  detained  by  an  acci- 
dent to  his  steamer.  The  writer  was  elected  the 
president  of  the  Conference.  The  business  of  the 
Conference  was  well  forward  by  Sunday.  The  dea- 
cons and  elders  were  elected.  On  Sunday  morning 
the  Conference  sermon  had  been  preached  by  me, 
from  Acts  vi,  5-8 :  "And  they  chose  Stephen,  a  man 
full  of  faith  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  .  .  .  And 
Stephen,  full  of  faith  and  power,  did  great  wonders 
and  miracles  among  the  people." 

The  audience  was  large.  The  interest  was  con- 
siderable. I  had  just  reached  the  peroration  of 
my  discourse,  when  I  saw  a  man,  wearing  a  linen 
duster    and    bearing    a    gripsack,    enter    the    log 


BISHOP  SIMPSON  IN  OREGON.  1 57 

church  and  seat  himself  just  inside  the  door.  I 
had  never  seen  Bishop  Simpson,  nor  had  I  ever  seen 
a  likeness  of  him ;  but  I  said :  "If  the  gentleman  who 
has  just  entered  the  house  is  Bishop  Simpson,  for 
whom  we  have  been  looking  so  long,  he  will 
please  come  forward,  and  I  will  introduce  him  to 
the  audience."  He  came  forward,  and  he  was  intro- 
duced. He  delivered  an  earnest  exhortation,  an- 
nounced a  discourse  by  himself  for  three  o'clock, 
when  the  ordination  of  deacons  and  elders  would 
take  place.  His  sermon  was  one  of  great  power. 
In  the  course  of  it  he  quoted  the  words  of  Paul 
to  the  elders  of  the  Church  at  Ephesus,  when  he 
said:  "But  none  of  these  things  move  me,  neither 
count  I  my  own  life  dear  unto  myself,  that  I  might 
finish  my  course  with  joy  and  the  ministry,  which 
I  have  received  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  to  testify  the 
gospel  of  the  grace  of  God."  His  rendering  of 
that  part  of  his  subject  was  exceedingly  dramatic. 
The  people  were  intensely  interested.  Some  wept, 
and  others  shouted.  Many  who  heard  that  sermon 
will  probably  never  forget  it  in  time  nor  in  eternity. 
Then  calling  up  the  deacons-elect,  he  ordained 
them.  A  brief  recess  was  taken.  The  lunch  was 
eaten  in  the  chapel  yard.  On  reassembling,  the 
bishop  preached  a  marvelous  sermon,  and  then  he 
ordained  the  elders.  The  hold  which  Bishop  Simp- 
son had  upon  the  hearts  of  his  frontier  audience, 
in  the  log  church  in  the  Belknap  Settlement,  was 
unmistakable.  The  Conference  minute  business 
was  concluded  on  Monday.  On  Tuesday  the  ses- 
sion was  adjourned.     The  members  felt  that  they 


158      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

had  been  through  a  Jerusalem  Pentecost,  and  were 
now  ready  for  another  year  of  toil  and  struggle  and 
victory. 

I  insert  here  excerpta  from  a  letter  which  I 
published  in  the  Western  Christian  Advocate,  July 
2,  1884,  soon  after  the  death  of  Bishop  Simpson, 
which  occurred  June  18,  1884.  It  will  doubtless 
have  interest  for  the  readers  of  this  volume : 

THE   LATE   BISHOP   SIMPSON-REMINISCENCES  OF 
HIM  IN  OREGON  AND  ELSEWHERE. 

When,  on  Wednesday  morning,  June  18th  last, 
the  chariot  stopped  at  1334  Arch  Street,  Philadelphia, 
for  God's  faithful  servant,  a  good  man,  greatly  be- 
loved and  honored,  tried,  true,  and  brave,  entered  it 
and  ascended  to  his  crowning.  Telegraphy  had  made 
all  the  world  as  real  spectators  of  Bishop  Simpson's 
ascension  as  Elisha  and  the  sons  of  the  prophets 
were  of  Elijah's.  As  Elijah  had  asked  his  colleague 
and  successor  what  he  should  do  for  him,  and  had 
promised  to  grant  his  request,  so  the  good  bishop, 
standing  amid  his  colleagues  and  his  brethren  of  the 
General  Conference  of  1884,  at  the  close  of  the  session, 
said :  "It  is  exceedingly  gratifying  to  me,  as  I  feel 
that  the  shadows  are  gathering  around  me  and  others, 
to  see  young  men,  truly  cultured  and  devoted  to  the 
cause  of  Christ,  able  to  come  forward  and  take  the 
reins  of  the  Church  and  guide  it  so  successfully  on- 
ward. May  God  be  gracious  to  them,  and  make  them 
greater  than  the  fathers  !" 

The  purpose  of  this  paper  is  to  give  incidents  in 
Bishop  Simpson's  life  which  came  under  my  personal 
notice.  They  will  have  interest  to  his  many  friends 
and  admirers,  because  they  illustrate  the  man  in 
his  less  public  and  official  life.     Having  never  been 


REMINISCENCES.  1 5  9 

published,  they  will  have  the  added  charm  of  fresh- 
ness. Most  of  these  occurred  in  Oregon.  One  of 
them,  and  among  the  most  thrilling,  occurred  in 
Washington,  D.  C,  on  the  next  day  after  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's reinauguration.  Bishop  Simpson's  first  offi- 
cial visit  to  Oregon  was  in  1854.  Bishop  Ames  had 
preceded  him  there  in  1853. 

I  first  saw  Bishop  Simpson  in  the  Conference  room 
in  Oregon.  The  Conference  met  that  year  in  Bel- 
knap Settlement,  Benton  County,  about  a  hundred  and 
twenty  miles  above  Portland,  the  chief  seaport. 
Steamboatingon  the  Upper  Willamette  was  suspended. 
There  were  then  no  stages  nor  other  public  convey- 
ances up  and  down  the  valley.  The  bishop  had  been 
hindered  by  an  accident  to  his  ocean  steamer.  He 
reached  Portland  on  Thursday,  the  day  after  the  ses- 
sion had  opened.  He  procured  a  man  to  take  him  to 
the  seat  of  the  Conference.  But  this  person,  not  know- 
ing where  Belknap  Settlement  was,  conveyed  him  to 
Polk  County  instead  of  Benton.  He  entered  the  log 
church  on  Sunday  morning,  just  as  the  writer  was 
closing  his  sermon.  No  one  there  had  ever  seen  him. 
I  said,  "If  the  gentleman  who  has  just  entered  the 
room  is  Bishop  Simpson,  he  will  please  advance  to 
the  pulpit.,,  He  came  forward.  I  introduced  him. 
He  gave  the  cause  of  the  delay  as  a  shipwreck, 
through  which  he  had  just  passed.  He  said  that 
when  in  imminent  peril,  and  amid  consternation  and 
alarm,  he  had  been  greatly  comforted  by  the  lines  of 
Henry  Kirke  White,  some  of  which  he  repeated  thus : 
"Once,  on  the  raging  seas  I  rode; 

The  storm  was  loud,  the  night  was  dark; 
The  ocean  yawned,  and  rudely  blowed 

The  wind  that  tossed  my  foundering  bark. 

Deep  horror  then  my  vitals  froze; 

Death-struck,  I  ceased  the  tide  to  stem; 
When  suddenly  a  star  arose, — 

It  was  the  Star  of  Bethlehem." 


160     SIXTY- ONE    YEARS  OP  ITINERANT  WORK'. 

He  told  how  sweetly  thrilling  the  lines  were,  and  how 
deeply  they  had  moved  him,  adding: 

"Now  safely  moored,  my  perils  o'er, 
I'll  sing,  first  in  night's  diadem, 
For  ever  and  for  evermore, 

The  Star,  the  Star  of  Bethlehem." 

The  effect  on  the  audience  was  strongly  marked. 
Many  wept ;  some  shouted.  The  bishop  spent  sev- 
eral weeks  with  me,  visiting  different  points  of  inter- 
est. One  Saturday  afternoon,  in  Salem,  he  inquired : 
''What  did  Bishop  Ames  preach  on  last  year  in 
Salem?"  I  replied  that  Bishop  Ames  had  preached 
a  most  memorable  sermon  on  "Faith."  The  next  day, 
in  the  same  pulpit,  and  to  many  of  the  same  people, 
Bishop  Simpson  preached  his  matchless  sermon  on 
"This  is  the  victory  that  overcometh  the  world,  even 
our  faith,"  and  "Have  faith  in  God."  The  effect  was 
indescribable.  Breathless  silence  prevailed  at  times, 
succeeded  and  broken  by  sobbing  and  weeping  and 
shouts.  He  carried  his  hearers  up  in  thought  and 
feeling  as  far  as  science  and  reason,  and  sight  and 
promise,  and  experience  and  imagination,  could  go 
toward  the  Invisible  and  the  Eternal.  And  then, 
while  expectation  was  keyed  to  its  utmost  pitch,  he 
climaxed  the  thought,  by  quoting: 

"Faith  lends  its  realizing  light; 

The  clouds  disperse,  the  shadows  fly: 
The  Invisible  appears  in  sight, 
And  God  is  seen  by  mortal  eye." 

Tears  of  joy  and  shouts  of  rapture  attested  the  magic 
of  his  eloquence.      .     .     . 

The    greatest    triumph    of    his    preaching    power 
which  I  witnessed  was  on  the  occasion  of  Lincoln's 


REMINISCENCES.  1 6 1 

reinauguration.  The  inauguration-day,  Saturday,  was 
dreary,  cloudy,  drizzly.  Just  as  Mr.  Lincoln  took  the 
oath  of  office,  the  clouds  parted,  and  sunshine  flooded 
the  scene.  The  next  day  the  bishop  preached  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  to  a  most  distinguished 
audience.  Senators,  congressmen,  diplomats,  secre- 
taries, judges,  generals,  admirals,  and  many  others, 
were  present.  Floors,  galleries,  aisles  were  crowded. 
In  front  of  the  speaker's  desk  sat  Mr.  Lincoln.  A 
lady  led  the  singing.  Prayer  was  offered  by  Dr. 
Thomas,  afterwards  killed  by  the  Modocs.  The 
bishop's  text  was,  "I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all 
men  unto  me."  He  spoke  of  the  power  of  Christ  to 
diminish  war  and  promote  peace,  and  then,  as  if 
recollecting  himself,  he  referred  to  the  Civil  War  then 
flagrant,  as  though  it  might  be  considered  fatal 
to  his  argument,  and  he  added :  "I  am  not  much  of  a 
believer  in  signs  and  omens ;  but  when,  yesterday, 
just  as  the  old  Administration  expired  and  the  new 
one  began,  the  rifted  clouds  let  God's  sunshine  flow, 
I  could  not  but  regard  it  as  an  augury  of  returning 
peace,  and  that  the  war  would  soon  close,  and  the 
new  Administration  would  be  one  of  peace."  In- 
stantly, as  if  by  electricity,  the  audience  were  stirred ; 
they  cheered  earnestly;  many  rose  to  their  feet;  hats 
were  thrown  up ;  men  embraced  each  other,  and  wept 
and  shouted.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  vigorously  rapping 
the  floor  with  his  cane,  the  big  tears'  chasing  each 
other  down  his  bronzed  face.  It  was  a  masterly 
triumph  of  human  eloquence,  set  on  fire  by  sympathy 
and  Christian  patriotism.  He  subsequently  delivered 
the  same  discourse  in  Chillicothe  to  the  wonder  and 
admiration  of  the  preachers  of  the  Cincinnati  and 
Ohio  Conferences.  I  heard  him  repeat  this  dis- 
course in  Portland,  Oregon.  Its  effect  there  was 
marvelous. 
ii 


1 62     SIXTY- ONE   YEARS  OE  ITINERANT  WORK. 

Bishop  Simpson  impressed  me,  in  a  very  inti- 
mate association  with  him  for  three  weeks,  with 
his  deep  spirituality  and  fellowship  with  God.  He 
was  a  man  of  rich  religions  experience;  as  much 
so  as  any  man  I  had  ever  known.  Several  remark- 
able incidents  of  his  visit  are  ineffaceably  fixed  in 
my  mind.  They  will  remain  with  me  as  long  as 
memory  shall  hold  her  place.  The  incidents  which 
follow  illustrate  certain  Scripture  statements.  They 
also  enforce  them;  as,  ''Cast  thy  bread  upon  the 
waters,  and  it  shall  be  gathered  after  many  days;" 
and  "Your  labor  shall  not  be  in  vain  in  the  Lord ;" 
and  especially,  "The  eyes  of  the  Lord  run  to  and 
fro  in  the  earth,  to  showr  himself  strong  in  behalf  of 
them  whose  hearts  are  right  with  him."  A  trip  to 
the  Dalles  of  the  Columbia  was  crowded  with  ad- 
venturous incidents,  some  of  which  were  of  thrill- 
ing power.  The  French  word  Dalles  denotes  a 
narrow  passage  of  waters.  At  the  place  we  were 
to  visit,  the  whole  volume  of  the  Columbia  River's 
waters  rush  and  roar  and  tumble  between  perpen- 
dicular basaltic  walls,  a  hundred  feet  below,  with  a 
power  and  a  majesty  of  wonderful  sublimity.  The 
passage  is  so  narrow  that  a  boy  could  easily  throw 
a  stone  from  one  bank  to  the  other.  This  is  one 
of  the  great  wonders  of  nature.  It  equals  Niagara 
in  its  weird  enchantment.  But  it  was  not  alone, 
nor  chiefly,  to  see  the  Dalles  that  we  went.  Our 
passage  there  involved  very  important  business 
relating  to  our  Missionary  Society  and  our  Church. 
The  passage  to  the  Cascades,  seventy  miles  from 
Portland,  was  in  a  river  steamer.     A  portage  of  five 


A    WAYSIDE  INTERVIEW.  1 63 

miles  obstructs  the  navigation  of  the  Columbia. 
Above  the  Cascades,  a  small  steam-launch  plied  to 
the  Dalles,  forty-five  miles.  This  launch  was  dis- 
abled at  the  time  of  our  trip,  and  we  were  obliged 
to  make  the  passage  by  canoe.  This  was  the  bish- 
op's first  voyage  by  canoe.  The  canoe  was  forty 
feet  long.  It  contained  fish-nets,  dogs,  three 
squaws,  two  Indians,  two  half-drunken  white  men, 
myself,  and  the  bishop,  to  say  nothing  of  innumer- 
able fleas.  The  two  white  men  were  both  drunk 
on  very  mean,  mischievous  whisky.  One  of  them 
was  coarse  and  brutal  in  his  nature.  The  other  was 
more  gentle,  and  evidently  more  educated  and  re- 
fined. The  latter,  in  the  conversation  the  bishop 
afterwards  held  with  him,  admitted  that  he  was  a 
student  in  Indiana  Asbury  University  when  Simp- 
son was  its  president.  They  were  profane  and  ob- 
scene in  their  filthy  discourse.  They  were  appar- 
ently seeking  to  provoke  and  exasperate  their  cler- 
ical fellow-passengers.  The  bishop  was  mild  and 
patient.  After  the  coarse-fibered  one  had  fallen 
off  into  a  stupor,  his  associate  ceased  talking.  After 
a  while  the  bishop  said  to  him  very  kindly,  "My 
friend,  is  your  mother  living?"  "O  yes,"  was  the 
reply.  "Where  does  she  live?"  "In  Indiana." 
"Did  you  attend  Asbury  University?"  "Yes,"  said 
he.  The  bishop  addressed  other  like  questions. 
"Is  your  mother  a  praying  woman?"  to  which  he 
replied  affirmatively.  "Does  your  mother  pray 
for  you?"  "O  yes,"  said  he,  "every  day.  I  should 
have  been  in  hell  long  ago  but  for  her  prayers." 
(  )nce  more  the  bishop  addressed  him:  "I  would 


164      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

not  like  to  seem  impertinent ;  but  there  is  one  other 
question  I  would  like  to  ask  you."  "Certainly," 
said  the  now  serious  and  thoughtful  young  man ; 
"any  question  you  please."  In  a  tender,  gentle 
tone,  and  in  a  somewhat  pathetic  manner,  the 
bishop  said,  "Do  you  think  your  mother  knows 
what  kind  of  a  life  you  are  leading?"  The  young 
prodigal  here  quite  broke  down,  burst  into  tears, 
and  said,  "I  would  not  have  her  know  it  for  the 
world ;  it  would  break  her  heart."  The  bishop  fol- 
lowed this  up  with  other  kindly  words.  Reaching 
Dog  River,  on  the  Oregon  side,  at  dusk,  the  young 
man  crossed  over  the  river  to  what  is  now  Wash- 
ington State,  and  the  bishop  saw  him  no  more. 
We  staid  in  the  Indian's  tepee  for  the  night.  We 
went  to  bed — our  bed  on  the  sand — supperless. 
The  dried  salmon  which  the  Indian  offered  us,  after 
he  had  toasted  it  upon  a  stick,  smelled  too 
rank,  and  we  could  not  eat  it.  This  occurred  in 
March,  1854. 

In  October,  1864,  I  was  going  clown  to  the 
Dalles  from  Umatilla,  on  a  large  river  steamer  on 
the  Columbia.  There  were  many  passengers  re- 
turning from  the  Salmon  River  mines.  One  of 
them  inquired  my  name,  and,  after  I  gave  it  to  him, 
he  recalled  the  canoe  ride  from  the  Cascades  to 
Dog  River,  and  he  asked  me  if  I  remembered  it. 
He  said  he  was  one  of  those  two  passengers;  that 
the  other  one,  whom  he  had  then  called  "Sandy," 
had  been  for  several  years  in  the  State  prison;  and 
then,  in  answer  to  my  inquiries,  he  said  that  that 
day  had  been  a  day  of  destiny  for  him  ;  the  ques- 


BLESSED  RESULTS.  1 65 

tions  of  the  bishop  had  led  to  his  reformation.  He 
had  ceased  his  drink-habit,  and  left  off  swearing, 
and  had  begun  a  life  of  prayer.  God  had  converted 
him.  He  was  a  happy  man.  He  had  a  wife  and 
three  children,  a  half-section  of  land,  and  money 
in  the  bank,  and  he  was  on  his  way  to  heaven,  and 
his  wife  also,  and  he  owed  it  all  to  the  wise  counsel 
and  the  kindly  treatment  of  that  good  man,  the 
bishop ;  and  he  desired  me,  whenever  I  should  have 
the  opportunity,  to  tell  the  bishop  that  his  faithful 
seed-sowing  of  more  than  ten  years  before  had 
brought  its  harvest  in  due  time.  In  June,  1868, 
on  the  summit  of  the  Rockies,  I  told  the  bishop  the 
story  of  his  success  in  that  wayside  seed-sowing 
which  he  did  on  the  Indian's  canoe  fourteen  years 
before.  It  was  a  notable  fulfillment  of  the  promise, 
"He  that  goeth  forth  and  weepeth,  bearing  precious 
seed,  shall  doubtless  come  again  with  rejoicing, 
bringing  his  sheaves  with  him." 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

AFTER  our  first  day's  canoe-sailing  and  our 
k  night  at  Dog  River,  we  embarked  the  next  day 
in  the  same  canoe  for  the  Dalles.  The  wind  was 
blowing  a  stiff  gale  up  the  river.  The  river  being 
in  freshet,  the  wind  caused  high  waves  to  roll  across 
the  river;  but  we  were  plowing  through  them  ten 
knots  an  hour.  The  bishop  became  nervous,  and 
we  went  ashore.  There  was  no  shelter,  and  the 
March  wind  was  bleak  and  cold.  We  relaunched 
our  craft,  and  reached  the  Dalles  in  an  hour's  sail- 
ing. After  transacting  our  business  at  the  Dalles 
military  post,  we  secured  Indian  ponies,  and  rode 
up  the  river  four  or  five  miles  to  see  the  Grand 
Coulee,  where  the  river  had  once  flowed,  and  to 
see  the  Grand  Dalles,  or  narrow  passage  of  waters. 
We  had  to  ascend  a  canon  to  find  safe  crossing 
of  a  small  but  swollen,  unfordable  stream.  We 
crossed  on  a  log  and  descended  the  canon ;  we  saw 
the  wonderful  passage  of  the  great  Columbia,  which 
carries  nearly  as  much  water  as  the  Mississippi. 
Returning  up  the  canon  for  our  log-bridge  cross- 
ing, we  encountered  a  large,  gray  wolf,  who  for  a 
time  refused  to  give  us  the  right  of  way.  By  dint 
of  bold  riding  and  loud  hallooing  and  swinging  our 
lariats,  we  started  his  wolfship,  and  proceeded  on 
our  way.  Emerging  later  from  the  canon  into  the 
open,  we  encountered  a  large  cavalcade  of  Indians, 
some  two  hundred,  all  mounted  and  armed.    There 

166 


ON  THE   COLUMBIA.  167 

was  a  general  unrest  among  all  the  Indian  tribes 
in  Oregon.  Several  murders  by  the  Indians  had 
occurred,  and  an  Indian  war  broke  out  within  a 
few  months  after  this.  The  procession  halted.  We 
were  in  deadly  peril.  The  bishop  said,  "Are  we 
not  in  great  danger?"  I  told  him  that  if  the  In- 
dians should  find  us,  or  believe  us  to  be,  Indian 
agents  or  traders,  or  United  States  military,  our 
scalps  would  be  taken  within  half  an  hour;  but  if 
I  could  convince  them  that  we  were  Methodist 
preachers,  I  believed  we  would  not  be  harmed.  We 
boldly  rode  up  to  the  head  of  the  column.  I  ad- 
dressed one  of  the  chiefs  in  the  Chinook  jargon, 
"Claihaiam  six,"  which  is  "How  are  you,  chief?" 
He  answered  me  in  English,  "I  do  not  talk  jargon." 
"Where  did  you  learn  to  talk  English?"  "In  Ith- 
aca, N.  Y."  "How  did  you  go  there?"  "With 
Commissioner  Parker."  I  introduced  Bishop 
Simpson  to  him,  and  through  him  to  the  Indians 
present,  as  a  great  ministerial  "Tyee,"  or  chief;  and 
Bishop  Simpson  introduced  me  as  a  great  Oregon 
chief,  or  minister  of  the  gospel.  We  rode  down 
together  to  the  Dalles,  and  had  some  interesting 
conversation. 

In  descending  the  Columbia,  the  bishop  pre- 
ferred to  sail  in  a  larger  craft  than  a  canoe,  which, 
in  our  ascending  the  river,  had  given  him  so  much 
alarm.  I  secured  passage  on  a  sloop,  which  was 
used  for  shipping  wood  and  other  freight  up  the 
river.  We  were  much  baffled  by  the  persistent  up- 
river  winds.  In  trying  to  tack  we  were  unable  to 
make  progress,  and  for  twenty-four  hours  we  made 


1 68      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

only  three  miles.  I  became  restless.  I  walked  back 
to  the  Dalles,  and  chartered  a  ship's  lighter,  and 
secured  a  crew  of  six  strong  Indians.  We  took  the 
bishop  and  our  baggage  aboard,  and  pulled  down 
some  two  or  three  miles  further  to  a  bend  in  the 
river,  where  for  ten  miles  the  river  ran  due  west, 
and  where  the  wind  had  unobstructed  sweep.  We 
rowed  for  two  hours,  without  making  any  progress. 
We  landed  and  spent  the  night  on  the  river  bank, 
under  the  lee  of  a  great  rock,  with  our  feet  to  the 
fire.  The  next  morning  the  wind  had  changed  to 
the  east.  We  were  pulling  our  boat  by  oars !  The 
sloop  came  by  and  passed  us,  arriving  at  the  Cas- 
cades some  hours  before  us.  Entering  the  Willa- 
mette River,  we  noticed  that  the  river  craft  had 
colors  at  half-mast.  Inquiry  gave  us  the  informa- 
tion that  the  steamer  Gazelle  had,  the  morning  be- 
fore, blown  up  at  the  wharf,  killing  nearly  all  on 
board.  That  was  the  boat  we  should  have  taken, 
had  not  baffling  winds  delayed  us.  We  felt  that  a 
sheltering  Providence  had  preserved  our  lives 
against  our  persistent  efforts  to  reach  Portland  at 
an  earlier  moment. 

The  bishop's  visit  had  been  made  a  great  bless- 
ing to  the  entire  Church  and  ministers  of  Oregon. 
His  counsels  were  wise.  His  appointments  of  the 
preachers  were  judicious. 

In  1855  we  had  Bishop  Baker  to  hold  our  Con- 
ference. That  year  we  elected  two  delegates  to 
the  General  Conference;  viz.,  William  Roberts  and 
Thomas  H.  Pearne.  The  General  Conference  met 
in  Indianapolis,  the  first  time  it  had  ever  met  so  far 


GENERAL    CONFERENCE,   /Sj6.  1 69 

West.  The  session  was  a  somewhat  exciting  and 
contentions  one.  The  great  issue  dividing  the  Con- 
ference was  the  rule  on  slavery,  which  it  was 
thought  should  be  made  stronger;  and  the  presid- 
ing eldership,  which  it  was  claimed  should  be  abol- 
ished. The  Conference  was  conservative,  and 
neither  of  the  objects  sought  by  the  Abolitionists 
on  th^  one  hand,  and  the  reformers  of  the  polity  of 
Methodism,  prevailed.  In  discussing  the  slavery 
question,  a  somewhat  amusing  episode  occurred. 
Dr.  James  Floy  and  Dr.  John  McClintock  debated 
in  Shakespearean  phrase,  one  of  them  remarking, 
in  the  language  of  Antony  in  his  oration : 

"  My  heart  is  in  the  coffin  there  with  Caesar, 
And  I  must  pause  till  it  come  back  to  me." 

The  other  responded : 

"  Let  all  the  ends  thou  aim'st  at  be  thy  country's, 
Thy  God's,  and  truth's." 

"  To  thine  own  self  be  true ; 
And  it  must  follow  as  the  night  the  day, 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man." 

Bishop  Morris,  who  was  presiding,  said,  "Brethren, 
let  us  turn  our  attention  from  William  Shakespeare 
to  the  Methodist  Discipline." 

In  discussing  the  presiding  elder  question,  one 
of  the  speakers,  Barnes  M.  Hall,  of  the  Troy  Con- 
ference, a  man  of  splendid  presence  and  of  consider- 
able ability  as  a  speaker,  made  a  statement,  which 
was  unguarded  and  doubtless  unwise,  to  the  effect 
that  he  had  successively  filled  the  office  of  presid- 
ing elder  in  the  Troy  Conference  on  two  of  the  best 


170      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

districts  in  the  Conference.  In  his  judgment,  and 
in  the  judgment  of  some  of  the  best  ministers  and 
laymen,  while  he  had  probably  filled  it  as  well 
as  any  of  his  predecessors,  neither  he  nor  they  be- 
lieved that  as  a  presiding  elder  he  had  earned  the 
salt  in  his  porridge.  I  reached  over  to  Peter  Cart- 
wright,  and  said  to  him,  "I  wish  you  would  shoot 
him  between  wind  and  water,  for  he  has  laid  him- 
self open,  and  he  can  be  punctured."  Cartwright 
obtained  the  floor,  and  remarked  that  he  had  been 
presiding  elder  continuously  for  thirty-six  years, 
and  had  known  all  the  bishops  of  Methodism  from 
Asbury  down,  yet  he  thought  the  Episcopal  Com- 
mittee should  go  for  the  bishops  who  appointed 
Brother  Hall  to  districts  for  eight  successive  years ; 
who,  in  his  own  opinion,  and  in  the  opinion  of  the 
best  ministers  and  laymen  and  ministers  in  the  dis- 
tricts he  served,  had  not  earned  the  salt  in  his 
mush.  Mr.  Hall  arose  to  a  question  of  privilege. 
Dr.  Cartwright  had  misrepresented  him;  he  had 
said  nothing  about  "mush ;"  he  spoke  of  porridge. 
Dr.  Cartwright  said  he  had  not  misrepresented  him 
at  all.  In  his  country  it  was  called  porridge;  but 
in  Cartwright's  the  same  thing  was  called  mush. 

I  met  Bishop  Morris  in  one  of  the  lobbies  of  the 
State  House,  in  which  the  General  Conference  was 
held,  on  the  last  night  of  the  Conference — a  very 
hot  night  in  June,  the  8th — and  asked  him  if  he 
would  visit  Oregon  during  the  ensuing  quadren- 
nium.  He  said,  "No;  wouldn't  I  cut  a  fine  figure 
riding  over  the  hills  of  Oregon  on  a  mule?"  When 
it  is  remembered  that  Bishop  Morris  was  immensely 


PA CIFIC  CHRISTIAN  AD  VOCA  TE  FO  UNDED.     1 7 1 

corpulent,  his  reply  will  be  better  understood.  Up 
to  that  session  of  the  General  Conference  the  sta- 
tistics of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  had  been 
limited  to  but  few  items.  Upon  my  procurement, 
the  range  of  the  statistics  was  made  to  include  bap- 
tisms, 'deaths,  ministerial  support,  and  the  value  of 
Church  property. 

In  1854  it  was  determined  by  the  preachers  and 
laymen  of  Oregon  to  issue  a  weekly  religious  news- 
paper, to  be  controlled  by  a  joint  stock  company. 
T.  H.  Pearne  was  elected  editor,  and  he  was  di- 
rected to  procure  an  office  and  a  six  months'  sup- 
ply of  paper.  But  as  this  had  to  be  shipped  by 
sailing  vessel  around  Cape  Horn,  it  was  long  in 
coming.  The  name  Pacific  Christian  Advocate 
was  finally  adopted  on  the  motion  of  Alvin  F.  Wal- 
ler, one  of  the  veterans  of  the  Conference.  The  first 
number  was  issued  September  5,  1855.  On  Sep- 
tember 5,  1895,  the  paper  celebrated  its  fortieth 
anniversary.  The  issue  of  that  date  bears  a  half- 
tone likeness  of  myself  and  successors,  Benson, 
Dillon,  Acton,  H.  K.  Hines,  W.  S.  Harrington, 
and  the  present  incumbent,  A.  N.  Fisher,  D.  D. 
At  the  request  of  the  editor,  I  addressed  the  follow- 
ing to  the  paper,  which  appeared  in  its  issue  of  the 
date  last  given: 

SEPTEMBER  5,  1855-SEPTEMBER  5,  1895. 

Between  these  dates  four  decades  have  rolled  their 
events  into  history.  A  generation  has  come  and  gone. 
The  Northwest  has  developed  into  populous,  magnifi- 
cent States.     Slavery  has  gone  down ;  rebellion  has 


172      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

been  suppressed  by  a  long,  bloody  Civil  War.  The 
world  has  advanced.  The  kingdom  of  Christ  has 
been  widely  extended.  The  world  has  been  approach- 
ing its  glorious  destiny  of  truth  and  righteousness. 
The  end  draweth  nigh. 

How  the  flying  years  have  sped  after  one  another 
adown  the  swiftly-receding  past!  How  long,  and  yet 
how  short,  seems  the  term  of  forty  years  since  the 
Pacific  Christian  Advocate  was  launched  in  Salem, 
Oregon !  Of  all  who  then  participated  in  the  estab 
lishment  and  conduct  of  the  paper,  and  who  were  its 
patrons  and  readers,  how  few,  comparatively,  remain ! 
How  many  of  the  early  Oregonians,  who  were  then 
active  and  potential,  have  since  left  these  mortal 
shores  for  the  invisible  and  unknown  realm  into 
which  all  of  earth's  former  generations  have  entered ! 
All  this  is  the  first  suggestion  of  the  occasion  and  the 
hour.  Only  survivors  of  epochs  and  movements  can 
fully  appreciate — if  indeed  they  can — the  great  change 
of  actors  and  agents  which  forty  years  make.  In  a 
new  and  forming  period  these  changes  are  all  the 
more  impressive.  They  stand  out  very  vividly  and 
boldly  in  the  receding  perspective. 

THE  CHIEF  ACTORS. 

In  the  Oregon  Methodist  circles  of  that  period, 
that  were  active  and  effective,  a  few  persons  stand 
out  prominently  in  my  memory.  Foremost  and  com- 
manding, was  James  H.  Wilbur,  the  vigorous,  self- 
sacrificing,  laborious,  popular,  and  useful  man,  be- 
cause he  was  so  manly  and  noble.  William  Roberts, 
the  accomplished,  gentlemanly  minister  and  super- 
intendent of  the  mission ;  Alvan  F.  Waller,  staid,  se- 
date, sensible,  good  ;  J.  L.  Parrish,  genial,  practical, 
and  of  strong  personality ;  David  Leslie,  the  patriarch 
ot    the    early    comers,    kindly,    thoughtful,    devout ; 


FOUNDERS  OF  THE  ADVOCATE.  1 73 

Nehemiah  Doane,  retiring,  unobtrusive;  Luther  T. 
Woodward;  John  Flinn,  with  his  great,  Irish  soul, 
full  of  sympathy  and  love ;  Francis  S.  Hoyt,  resource- 
ful, meditative,'  lovable,  president  of  the  Willamette 
University;  Dr.  Wilson,  one  of  the  earliest  of  the 
Oregon  missionaries;  Isaac  Dillon,  scholarly,  cheer- 
ful; Gustavus,  Joseph,  and  Harvey  K.  Hines,  the 
strong,  brave  trio ;  William  Helm,  an  earnest,  conse- 
crated man.  And  of  laymen,  George  Abernethy, 
ex-governor;  Alexander  Abernethy,  his  brother; 
Alanson  Beers;  George  Holman  and  his  noble  wife; 
James  R.  Robb ;  Charles  Craft;  Hamilton  Campbell. 
Others  there  were:  C.  S.  Kingsley,  John  McKinney, 
Enoch,  Joseph,  and  Abram  Garrison,  Fabritus 
Smith,  C.  Alderson,  S.  Matthews,  J.  F.  Devore,  and 
others;  some  of  whom  may  yet  be  living.  Of  the 
thirty-one  named,  I  can  recall  but  nine  who  yet  re- 
main. All  of  those  named  were  persons  of  great 
energy  and  influence,  who  left  their  impress  upon  the 
new  State.  So  many  of  them  have  gone  to  their 
silent  rest, — 

"  Time,  like  an  ever-rolling  stream, 
Bears  all  its  sons  away ; 
They  fly,  forgotten,  as  a  dream 
Dies  at  the  opening  day." 

I  forbear  this  line  of  somber  reminiscences. 

ORIGIN  OF  THE  PACIFIC  CHRISTIAN  ADVOCATE. 
In  1854,  after  repeated  talks  on  the  urgent  need 
there  was  for  a  religious  paper  as  the  organ  of  Oregon 
Methodism,  the  purpose  ripened  into  plans.  It  was 
determined  to  organize  a  joint  stock  company  to  es- 
tablish and  issue  a  religious  weekly  in  Oregon.  It 
was  estimated  to  cost  some  three  thousand  or  four 
thousand    dollars    to    purchase   an    office    and    a    six 


174      SIXTY- OXE    YEARS   OF  ITIXERAXT   WORK'. 

months'  supply  of  paper.  Articles  of  agreement  were 
prepared.  George  and  Alexander  Abernethy,  James 
R.  Robb,  Beers,  Holman,  Kingsley,  Waller,  Wilbur, 
Parrish,  Pearne,  Hines,  and  perhaps  one  or  two  others, 
subscribed  the  necessary  amounts.  I  wrote  to  Francis 
Hall,  Esquire,  a  relative  of  mine,  who  was  then  the 
publisher  and  proprietor  of  the  New  York  Commercial 
Advertiser,  to  purchase  and  forward  to  us  the  neces- 
sary outfit,  remitting  to  him  the  funds  required.  They 
were  nearly  six  months  in  coming  around  Cape  Horn 
to  Oregon. 

the  name  of  the  paper. 

We  had  considerable  study  and  care  in  agreeing 
upon  a  name  for  the  new  paper  proposed.  The 
Methodists  of  California  had  already  projected  and 
started  a  paper  called  the  California  Christian  Advo- 
cate. The  California  Congregationalists  wrere  issuing 
The  Pacific.  The  Southern  Methodists  of  California 
had  started  a  paper,  called,  as  I  now  remember,  rather 
indistinctly,  the  Pacific  Methodist.  The  Oregon  Chris- 
tian Advocate  was  suggested,  but  rejected  as  being  too 
local  and  narrow.  The  North  Pacific  Herald  was  pro- 
posed, but  rejected  as  being  entirely  too  long.  At 
last  the  Pacific  Christian  Advocate  was  suggested  and 
adopted.  Forty  years  of  history  have  vindicated  the 
wisdom  of  the  name  selected. 

PLACE  OF  PUBLICATION. 

The  paper  was  first  published  in  Salem.  The  office 
stood  back  from  the  river  in  the  sparsely-settled  part 
of  the  town.  The  building  selected  was  small,  incon- 
venient, unsuitable ;  but  it  seemed  to  be  the  only  place 
to  be  obtained.  It  was  a  humble,  unostentatious  be- 
ginning. After  a  few  months  the  paper  was  removed 
to  Portland,  where  it  should  have  gone  from  the  first. 


PACIFIC   CHRISTIAN  ADVOCATE.  1 75 

THE  FIRST  ISSUE. 

The  first  number  of  the  paper  was  badly  printed. 
The  impression  was  dim,  indistinct,  and  blurred.  The 
ink  was  not  evenly  distributed  by  the  roller  upon  the 
form.  It  was  difficult  to  read.  The  general  appear- 
ance was  unpleasant  and  unsatisfactory.  To  me  it 
was  especially  disappointing,  as,  also,  it  was  to  most 
of  the  friends  of  the  enterprise.  The  selected  and  con- 
tributed articles  were  of  fair  quality.  These  defects 
were  early  remedied  and  soon  forgotten  in  the  im- 
proved issues  which  were  sent  out  not  long  after.  The 
first  editorial,  or  leading  article,  filled  about  a  column 
and  a  quarter  or  a  column  and  a  third  of  the  old  style — 
four  pages,  blanket  sheet.  Its  subject  was  an  outline 
of  the  scope  and  purposes  of  the  new  weekly  journal. 

CIRCULATION,  SALARY  OP  EDITOR,  ETC. 

The  circulation  of  the  Pacific  Christian  Advocate 
was  at  first  rather  small.  It  slowly  increased,  until,  in 
the  first  year,  it  had  grown  to  eighteen  hundred  or 
two  thousand.  Many  subscribed  for  additional  copies 
to  the  one  for  their  own  use,  and  sent  them  back  to 
the  States  to  relatives  on  the  Atlantic  board.  Some 
subscribed  and  paid  for  three  or  four  copies  to  send 
East,  to  assist  in  building  up  and  sustaining  the  paper. 
It  always  had  many  good  friends,  who  nobly  stood 
by  it.  The  expenses  of  publishing  the  paper  were  so 
large,  and  its  income  was  so  limited,  that  we  were 
compelled  to  use  the  strictest  economy.  The  editor's 
salary  for  several  years  was  seven  hundred  dollars  a 
year.  For  this  small  sum  he  was  obliged  to  do  the 
labor  of  two  or  three  persons.  His  duties  were  various, 
including  a  somewhat  wide  range.  He  kept  all  the 
books  for  subscriptions  and  advertising;  he  mailed 
all  the  papers  sent  out ;  he  collected  all  the  accounts, 


176      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OE  ITINERANT   WORK. 

and  paid  all  the  expenses  of  the  publication;  he  was 
publisher,  bookkeeper,  proof-reader,  editor,  and  gen- 
eral choreboy.  For  all  this  overwork  and  drudgery 
there  was  never  any  extra  pay  nor  specific  remuner- 
ation. It  was  often  impossible  to  pay  the  printers 
and  meet  current  expenses  without  borrowing  money. 
This  I  often  did,  sometimes  carrying  a  debt  of  several 
hundred  dollars.  As  I  recall  those  early  times,  and 
the  buffet  and  struggle  through  which  we  came,  I 
am  surprised  that  we  succeeded  as  well  as  we  did. 

EVOLUTION. 

The  joint  stock  company  fell  through  because  of 
the  non-payment  of  subscriptions.  I  was  soon  the 
sole  proprietor  of  the  plant,  which  had  cost  three 
thousand  five  hundred  dollars.  I  had  to  borrow  money 
to  pay  the  purchase  bills  and  current  expenses. 

In  May,  1856,  I  was  a  delegate  to  the  General 
Conference  which  met  in  Indianapolis.  William 
Roberts  was  my  co-delegate.  The  paper  was  edited 
in  my  absence  by  Rev.  Dr.  Hoyt,  then  president  of 
Willamette  University.  The  Conference  bought  the 
plant,  and  instructed  the  New  York  book  agents  to 
continue  the  publication.  I  was  elected  editor.  In 
i860  I  was  re-elected.    In  1864  I  declined  a  re-election. 

MISSION  AND  HISTORY  OF  THE  PAPER. 

The  paper  has  fulfilled  a  high  and  important  mis- 
sion. When  the  Constitution  of  the  State  was  formed 
and  adopted,  the  paper  made  itself  felt  in  favor  of 
Oregon  as  a  free  State.  There  was  a  strong  effort 
made  to  adopt  a  slavery  clause.  The  presence  of  a 
large  part  of  the  population  of  Oregon  as  immigrants 
from  slaveholding  States  rendered  it  strongly  prob- 
able that  the  slavery  schedule  would  be  adopted.    The 


INFLUENCE    OF   THE  ADVOCATE.  177 

paper  advocated  a  free  State,  and  it  opposed  other  ob- 
jectionable features  during  the  formation  of  the  con- 
stitution, so  that  its  mission  in  that  direction  was 
vitally  important.  Then,  when  secession  was  rife,  and 
the  Breckenridge  and  Lane  faction  of  the  Democratic 
party  tried  to  swing  California  and  Oregon  into  the 
secession  movement,  the  editor  of  the  Pacific  Advocate 
rung  the  bell  loudly  for  the  Union  cause,  and  against 
secession,  adding  to  his  editorials  on  this  behalf  his 
personal  influence  in  the  pulpit  and  on  the  rostrum 
for  the  Union. 

The  paper  has  been  an  important  factor  in  pro- 
moting the  growth,  stability,  and  usefulness  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  Oregon  and  Wash- 
ington and  Idaho  States.  It  has  most  amply  repaid 
all  it  has  cost  in  its  effective  influence  in  conserving 
and  furthering  the  cause  of  truth  and  righteousness. 

SUCCESSORS. 

The  honored  men  who  have  succeeded  me  in  the 
conduct  of  the  paper  have  deserved  well  of  the  Church, 
not  only  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  but  also  throughout  the 
connection.  Noble  men,  able  men,  God-honoring 
men,  I  love  and  admire  them,  and  I  pray  for  them 
every  day.  I  wish  and  I  predict  for  the  Pacific  Chris- 
tian Advocate  a  very  glorious  future,  grander  and 
higher  than  its  past. 

THE  LATE  DWIGHT  WILLIAMS. 

In  the  anniversary  issue  of  the  Pacific  Christian 
Advocate  for  its  fortieth  year,  the  first  article  on  the 
first  page  is  a  hymn  written  by  this  modern  poet 
of  Methodism,  entitled,  "Looking  Backward."  In 
my  first  station,  after  my  admission  on  trial  into 
the  Oneida  Conference  in  1839,  as  I  have  elsewhere 
12 


1 78      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

shown,  fifty-nine  years  ago,  Dwight  Williams  and 
his  saintly  mother  became  members  of  my  charge. 
He  was  somewhat  younger  than  I ;  but  our  fellow- 
ship was  very  sweet.  When  my  father,  some  years 
after  my  first  pastorate  in  Madison,  became  pastor 
there,  he  found  Dwight  Williams,  then,  as  always, 
true  and  faithful.  It  was  fortunate  that  the  Pacific 
Christian  Advocate  could  include  this  poetic  genius 
to  write  up  the  occasion.  He  has  done  it  nobly 
and  well.  All  honor  to  him  and  to  those  who  are 
staying  by  the  stuff!  They  will  not  fail  of  their 
great  reward.     But  to  the  poetic  lines: 

"LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

"  Down  to  the  vale  of  Long  Ago, 

That  slumbers  in  the  haze  below, 

We  turn  as  from  a  mountain  tower, 

To  feel  the  rapture  of  an  hour, 
As  o'er  the  spaces  measured 
With  trophies  we  have  treasured, 

We  mark  the  iron  path  of  power ; 

Where  rugged  toil  and  bold  design, 

With  hero  faith  and  love  benign, 

Have  led  us  to  this  outlook  wide 

With  far-off  visions  beautified. 

Four  slow  decades — a  tale  euscrolled, 
And  by  ten  thousand  voices  told, 
Enversed  in  songs  of  liberty, 
Inscribed  on  temples  of  the  free — 

Romantic  years  of  story, 

And  new  found  fields  of  glory, 
The  preludes  grand  of  what  shall  be  ; 
For  ah,  the  Prince  of  Peace  leaves  not 
The  world  beset  with  evil  plot; 
Yes,  we  have  seen  his  charioteers 
Along  the  valley  of  the  years. 


LOOKING   BACKWARD.  1 79 

Is  lie  not  here  the  'Light  of  men,' 
To  diamond-point  the  living  pen 
That  writes  of  Him  and  his  great  peace, 
Till  it  shall  run  with  no  surcease? 

Not  chariots  and  horses, 

We  harness  swifter  forces; 
For  evil,  too,  with  dread  increase, 
Rides  sumptuously  on  paths  of  power, 
Or  sits  defiant  in  his  tower. 
We  ride  as  swiftly,  and  our  star 
Leads  on  to  triumph  fields  afar. 

What  means  it  that  our  King  and  Lord 
Came  not  to  conquer  by  the  sword  ? 
Could  he  take  up  so  mean  a  thing 
Whose  orders  take  the  lightning's  wing, 

Whose  chariots  go  with  wonder 

From  chambers  of  the  thunder 
While  angel  legions  he  could  bring? 
Ah  no!  he  calleth  heroes  of  his  own 
Invincible  in  him  alone ! 
Look  down  and  see  the  archways  grand, 
As  on  the  path  of  years  they  stand. 


All  praise  to  thee,  thou  lowly  One, 
Once  here,  now  on  thy  star-gemmed  throne ; 
King  of  the  present,  King  of  the  past, 
Lord  of  the  ages,  First  and  Last. 

The  vision  is  before  us, 

Thy  beauty  shineth  o'er  us; 
All  power  and  love  are  thine,  thou  hast 
The  golden  scepter  evermore ; 
No  boast  of  ours ;  thee  we  adore, 
And  bless  thee  as  we  look  below, 
Down  to  the  vale  of  Long  Ago." 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

IN  1862,  I  think,  Bishop  Simpson  made  his  last 
visit  to  Oregon,  during  my  stay  there.  Three 
things  stand  out  in  my  memory  in  connection  with 
that  visit.  One  was,  the  bishop's  sermon  at  the 
Conference,  and  his  address  to  the  candidates  for 
admission  into  the  traveling  connection.  A  second 
was,  his  address  on  the  state  of  the  country  to  an 
immense  week-night  audience  in  Portland,  Oregon. 
The  demonstrations  were  not  equal  to  what  I  wit- 
nessed in  Washington  three  years  later,  as  already 
described.  Nor  yet  wTas  it  equal  to  what  tradition 
describes  as  to  his  discourse  at  Chillicothe,  on 
occasion  of  the  reunion  of  the  Ohio  and  Cincinnati 
Conferences.  Yet  the  effort  was  recognized  by 
those  present  as  one  of  the  finest  and  most  effect- 
ively eloquent  of  addresses  ever  heard.  The  third 
was,  a  six  or  seven  days'  ride  from  Portland,  Ore- 
gon, in  my  buggy,  with  Bishop  Simpson,  to 
Yreka,  California.  We  usually  drove  forty  or  fifty 
miles  in  each  day.  The  weather  was  charming. 
No  rain  fell  during  the  whole  trip.  My  two  horses 
carried  us  the  day's  trip  usually  by  the  middle  of 
the  afternoon.  A  messenger  was  sent  out  to  in- 
vite in  the  neighbors  to  a  religious  meeting.  The 
bishop  would  give  us  a  sweet,  unpretentious  fire- 
side, or  sitting-room,  talk  on  some  previous  topic, 
and  the  subdued  and  subduing  influence  of  those 
meetings  I  can  never  forget. 

180 


INTERESTING    TRIP.  iSl 

The  bishop  was  in  the  spirit  of  genial  and 
blessed  fellowship.  The  people  were  often  moved 
to  tears,  and  sometimes  to  shouts,  by  his  kindly  and 
stirring  words.  I  never  enjoyed  a  man's  conver- 
sation and  spirit  more  than  his  on  that  occasion. 
We  never  were  without  interesting  and  profitable 
topics,  and  never  was  a  person  more  able  nor  more 
willing  than  he  to  give  out  his  views  and  his  kindly 
fellowship  to  his  traveling  companion.  The  return 
trip  was  beguiled  of  its  loneliness  by  the  memory 
of  the  drive  from  Portland  to  California.  He  was 
always  welcomed  and  hospitably  treated  where  we 
stopped.  I  am  sure  that  in  all  the  families  where 
we  stopped  that  visit  will  be  remembered  in  years 
to  come  by  those  who  entertained  us.  I  was  led  to 
compare  that  drive  with  those  which  Bishop  As- 
bury  and  his  traveling  companion  made  all  over 
this  continent  a  hundred  years  ago  and  later.  The 
social  influence  of  the  early  ministers  in  these 
fireside  occasions  was  one  of  its  most  prolific  of 
blessings. 

The  Pacific  Christian  Advocate  started  out  with  a 
subscription-list  of  about  fourteen  hundred.  But 
after  a  few  months,  it  was  found  that  the  paper 
could  be  much  better  issued  in  Portland;  and  it 
was  removed  there.  Its  circulation  and  advertising 
business  greatly  increased  after  its  removal.  In 
1856  the  General  Conference  ordered  the  purchase 
of  the  outfit,  and  elected  T.  H.  Pearne  the  editor. 
In  i860  he  was  re-elected ;  but  in  1864  he  declined  a 
re-election.  His  salary  was  fixed  at  seven  hundred 
dollars,  and  for  this  allowance  he  edited  and  pub- 


182      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

lished  and  mailed  the  paper  with  his  own  hands  for 
four  years.  This  sum  was  increased  -later  to  one 
thousand  dollars.  The  paper  became  a  very  impor- 
tant factor  in  promoting  the  interests  of  Methodism 
in  its  work  in  Oregon.  With  varying  measures  of 
success,  the  enterprise  has  been  maintained  for 
forty-three  years.  It  is  still  a  vigorous  and  potent 
agency  for  truth  and  righteousness  in  that  most 
interesting  and  growing  field. 

The  action  taken  as  to  the  Pacific  Christian  Ad- 
vocate was  as  follows,  viz. : 

Resolved,  i,  That  the  Book  Agents  at  New  York 
be  directed  to  establish  a  Book  Depository,  and  pub- 
lish a  weekly  paper  in  Oregon  Territory. 

Resolved,  2,  That  we  advise  the  Book  Agents  at 
New  York  to  purchase,  at  a  cost  not  exceeding  three 
thousand  five  hundred  dollars,  the  publishing  office 
already  established,  and  continue  the  publication  of 
the  Pacific  Christian  Advocate. 

Resolved,  3,  That  the  Oregon  Conference  be  di- 
rected to  appoint  a  Publishing  Committee  of  five, 
who  shall  have  power  to  fix  the  salary  of  the  editor 
of  the  Pacific  Christian  Advocate,  audit  his  accounts, 
and  have  a  general  oversight  of  his  editorial  conduct, 
and  make  an  annual  report  of  the  same  to  the  Oregon 
Conference  and  to  the  Book  Agents  at  New  York. 

The  same  General  Conference  provided,  also, 
for  a  Committee  on  Appeals,  to  have  the  handling 
and  decision  of  appeals.  A  special  committee  of 
not  less  than  fifteen  of  the  members  of  the  General 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  COURT  OF  APPEALS.    1 83 

Conference  was  also  provided  for,  and  their  duties 
and  powers  are  thus  defined: 

The  General  Conference  may  try  appeals  from 
members  of  Annual  Conferences  who  may  have  been 
censured,  suspended,  expelled,  or  located,  without 
their  consent,  by  a  committee  of  not  less  than  fifteen 
of  its  members,  nor  more  than  one  member  from  each 
delegation,  who,  in  the  presence  of  a  bishop  presid- 
ing, and  one  or  more  of  the  secretaries  of  the  Confer- 
ence keeping  a  faithful  record  of  all  the  proceedings 
had,  shall  have  full  power  to  hear  and  determine  the 
case,  subject  to  the  rules  and  regulations  which  govern 
the  said  Conference  in  such  proceedings;  and  the 
records  made,  and  the  papers  submitted,  in  such  trial, 
shall  be  presented  to  the  Conference,  and  be  filed  and 
preserved  with  the  papers  of  that  body. 

Two  years  later  I  was  appointed  by  the  Ore- 
gon Conference  to  defend  its  action  in  the  case  of 
one  of  its  members,  who  had  been  convicted  of 
traducing  the  character  of  one  of  his  fellow-mem- 
bers, and  subjected  to  a  reprimand  from  Bishop 
Simpson,  who  presided  in  the  Conference  of  1862, 
and  which  we  were  informed  had  been  appealed  to 
the  General  Conference  of  1864.  I  was  a  delegate 
that  year  in  connection  with  James  H.  Wilbur,  who 
was  employed  by  the  appellant  to  conduct  his  case. 
When  the  case  was  called,  I  made  a  motion  be- 
fore the  court  that  the  appeal  should  not  be  enter- 
tained, for  the  following  reasons:  The  appellant 
had  forfeited  his  right  to  that  appeal  (1)  by  locat- 
ing from  the  Oregon  Conference,  and  (2)  by  his  re- 


184      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

admission  into  the  Baltimore  Conference.  Bishop 
E.  S.  Janes  decided  that  every  traveling  minister 
had  the  right  of  appeal,  and  that  my  motion  was 
therefore  out  of  order,  and  it  could  not  be  enter- 
tained by  him.  From  his  decision  I  appealed,  and 
stated  the  grounds  of  my  appeal,  as  follows:  The 
Court  of  Appeals  must  take  into  account  the  con- 
ditions of  this  case,  and  must  determine,  before  ad- 
mitting an  appeal,  whether  the  possible  results  of 
the  appeal  would  be  practicable.  For  example,  sup- 
pose the  appellant,  after  locating,  had  remained 
a  local  preacher;  or,  suppose  he  had  then  joined 
another  Church,  could  the  Court  of  Appeals,  in 
such  a  case,  admit  his  appeal?  By  location,  he  had 
forfeited  his  right  to  appeal;  for  his  right  to  an 
appeal  lay  in  his  being  a  Methodist  traveling 
preacher.  But  the  appellant  had  re-joined  from  lo- 
cation the  Baltimore  Conference.  And  supposing 
the  appeal  admitted,  one  of  three  things  would 
happen:  the  action  appealed  from  might  be  con- 
firmed, or  reversed,  or  sent  back  for  a  new  trial ; 
and,  in  the  latter  case,  if  the  case  were  sent  back 
for  a  new  trial,  it  would  require  the  Oregon  Con- 
ference to  re-try  a  person  who  was  not  one  of  its 
members,  but  was  in  fact  a  member  of  another 
Conference.  The  court  reversed  the  decision  of 
the  bishop,  so  sustaining  my  appeal. 

The  General  Conference  of  1856  greatly  en- 
larged the  statistical  tables.  Up  to  that  date  the 
statistics  of  our  Church  were  limited  to  five  items 
as  to  members,  four  items  as  to  the  number  and 
value  of  parsonages  and  collections  for  Bible  and 


GENERAL    CONFERENCE  ACTION.  1 85 

Tract  Societies,  collections  for  Conference  claim- 
ants and  for  the  Missionary  Society. 

In  response  to  a  resolution  I  offered,  and  which 
was  referred  to  the  Committee  of  Revisals,  the 
General  Conference  of  1856  added  the  following 
questions  of  statistics,  viz. :  Number  of  deaths  the 
past  year ;  number  of  probationers ;  number  of  local 
preachers ;  number  of  adults  baptized  the  past  year ; 
number  of  children  baptized  the  past  year.  This 
Conference  also  provided  for  missionary  bishops, 
limiting  their  jurisdiction  to  their  mission  fields, 
and  providing  that  if  they  ceased  to  be  missionary 
bishops,  or  should  be  removed  from  their  field  per- 
manently, they  should  fall  back  into  the  Annual 
Conference  of  which  they  had  been  members  there- 
tofore. The  Conference  adjourned  on  the  8th  of 
June.  The  following  action,  on  motion  of  William 
Roberts,  was  had  in  reference  to  the  representation 
of  the  Pacific  Conferences  in  the  General  Mission 
Committee : 

Whereas,  The  Conferences  on  the  Pacific  Coast 
are  too  far  removed  from  the  Atlantic  States  to  allow 
of  a  personal  representation  in  the  General  Mission 
Committee  without  involving  great  expense;  and 

Whereas,  The  domestic  missionary  work  in  these 
Conferences  is  constantly  changing,  and  requiring 
modification  in  its  general  arrangement,  and  needs 
special  representation  in  the  said  Missionary  Com- 
mittee; therefore, 

Resolved,  That,  in  the  appointment  of  the  Gen- 
eral Missionary  Committee,  the  bishop  be  directed 
to  constitute  corresponding  members  of  the  said  com- 


1 86      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

mittee  for  the  Oregon  and  California  Conferences,  re- 
spectively, who  shall  have  a  corresponding  relation  to 
said  committee,  and  shall  be  allowed  to  vote  by  proxy  in 
its  annual  meetings,  on  all  subjects  relating  to  domestic 
missions  on  the  Pacific  Coast. 

In  Oregon  I  made  myself  familiar  with  public 
affairs,  and  I  criticised  somewhat  freely  what  I  con- 
ceived to  be  deserving  of  reprehension.  For  ex- 
ample, the  Legislature  of  Oregon  had  projected 
a  Sunday  law,  which  left  the  subject  wide  open.  A 
coach  and  six  could  have  driven  right  through  it, 
because  of  the  laches  it  contained.  I  made  an  ap- 
pointment to  preach  in  Salem,  the  State  capital,  on 
a  certain  Sabbath  evening,  and  to  review  the  pro- 
posed Sunday  law,  which  was  then  under  consider- 
ation. I  expressed  myself  very  plainly  and  fear- 
lessly on  the  subject,  and  I  compared  the  proposed 
Oregon  Sunday  law  with  Sunday  laws  in  some  of 
the  older  States.  The  result  was,  the  Legislature 
was  plied  with  petitions  and  protests  on  the  sub- 
ject, until  the  law  was  amended,  and  Oregon  took 
her  place  alongside  of  her  sister  States  in  a  manner 
creditable  to  her  good  name  as  a  young  member 
of  the  United  States  of  America.  Hon.  Delazon 
Smith,  one  of  the  first  senators  elected  after  the 
admission  of  Oregon,  was  a  leading  member  of  the 
Convention  which  presented  the  State  Constitu- 
tion. He  was  from  New  York.  I  conferred  with 
him  upon  the  wisdom  of  giving  Oregon  ample  size. 
Referring  to  New  York  and  Rhode  Island,  he  and 
I  concluded  that  size  and  population  will  give  a 
State  more  recognition  and  influence  in  the  Re- 


LARGE  STATES — SLAVERY  IN   OREGON.         1 87 

public  than  smaller  dimensions  and  fewer  people. 
We  both  agreed  in  this  as  to  size;  and  as  to  the 
population  we  believed  it  would  come  in  the  course 
of  time,  and  he  reported  in  favor  of  the  present 
dimensions  of  Oregon.  It  is  about  three  hundred 
and  thirty  miles  east  and  west,  by  two  hundred  and 
eighty  north  and  south,  containing  94,500  square 
miles.  The  population  has  climbed  to  three  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  thousand.  All  the  Pacific 
States  have  followed  the  example  of  Oregon.  Cali- 
fornia has  155,000  square  miles;  Washington,  78,- 
750  square  miles;  Idaho,  96,150  square  miles ;  Mon- 
tana, 274,400  square  miles;  Wyoming,  217,600 
square  miles;  North  Dakota  has  100,000  square 
miles,  and  South  Dakota  180,600  square  miles. 
These  States  combined  have  an  area  of  1,275,600 
square  miles,  one-third  the  area  of  the  entire  Re- 
public. 

During  the  pendency  of  the  State  Constitution 
and  the  admission  of  Oregon  into  the  sisterhood 
of  the  States  of  the  Republic,  I  attended  all  the 
sessions  of  the  State  Constitutional  Convention, 
and  took  down  in  shorthand  the  principal  discus- 
sions and  enactments  of  the  Convention,  freely  dis- 
cussing in  the  columns  of  the  Pacific  Christian  Ad- 
vocate the  measures  proposed.  Among  other 
things,  the  attempt  was  made  to  have  a  slave  Con- 
stitution for  Oregon ;  a  State  the  very  soil  of  which 
was  dedicated  to  freedom  by  a  law  of  Congress. 
I  vigorously  opposed  the  movement.  General 
Joseph  Lane,  our  delegate  in  Congress,  was  stump- 
ing the  State  for  re-election  to  Congress,  and  in  his 


1 88      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

canvass  he  would  put  in  arguments  in  favor  of 
Oregon  as  a  slave  State.  We  defeated  the  slavery 
clause,  scheduled  for  us  to  vote  on,  and  defeated 
the  pro-slavery  measure  by  a  majority  of  over  three 
thousand  votes,  and  the  general's  majority  was  cut 
down  from  five  thousand  majority  to  less  than  three 
thousand,  as  I  now  recall  the  result. 

Oregon  and  California  were  settled,  in  large 
measure,  by  immigrants  from  the  slave  States  of 
Missouri,  Tennessee,  Kentucky,  Arkansas,  and 
Texas.  Hence  the  effort  to  plant  slavery  upon  the 
State;  and  hence,  also,  the  expectation  of  the 
fomenters  of  the  secession  movement  of  i860  and 
1 86 1,  that  the  Pacific  States  would  join  their  for- 
tunes with  the  proposed  Confederacy.  We  were 
aware  of  this  expectation  during  the  election  cam- 
paign of  Abraham  Lincoln  as  a  Republican  candi- 
date, and  the  candidacy  of  Breckinridge  and  Lane 
of  the  ultra  Southern  wing  of  the  Democratic  party, 
and  of  Douglas  and  Stevens  of  the  Free  Soil  wing 
of  the  Democratic  party.  It  was  probably  because 
of  this  stand  which  I  took  in  favor  of  the  Free  State 
party  in  Oregon,  that  I  was  sent  as  chairman  of 
the  delegation  of  Oregon  in  the  Republican  Na- 
tional Convention,  which  met  at  Baltimore  in 
1864.  The  Convention  met  where  the  first  blood  of 
the  War  of  the  Rebellion  was  shed.  When  the  busi- 
ness of  the  Convention  was  advanced  enough,  Rev. 
Dr.  J.  McKendree  Riley  made  the  opening  prayer. 
It  was  deeply  affecting.  He  thanked  the  Lord 
that  after  four  years  of  bloody  war  we  were  enabled 
to  hold  a  National  Convention  in  the  city  of  Balti 


REPUBLICAN  NATIONAL    CONVENTION.         1 89 

more.  His  tones  were  pathetic.  The  Convention 
stood  during  the  prayer.  Many  of  the  members 
wept  freely.  One  man  in  particular,  of  the  Ohio 
delegation,  which  sat  next  behind  us,  could  not 
refrain  from  sobbing  and  weeping  violently.  In 
the  preliminaries  of  the  Convention  he  had  been 
very  chatty,  and  withal  quite  too  profuse  in  using 
profane  words.  After  the  prayer,  and  when  the 
Convention  was  seated,  some  one  challenged  the 
sympathetic  man  who  before  had  been  so  full  of 
profanity,  thus:  "I  did  not  know  that  you  were  so 

pious."     "Well,"  said  the  other,  "I  do  n't  cry 

very  much  nor  very  often  as  a  rule ;  but  that  prayer 

was  so good,  it  just  drew  the  juice  out  of  me 

in  spite  of  everything.,,  He  rather  sobbed  this  out 
than  said  it.  It  was  a  singular  mixture  of  religious 
emotion  and  profanity. 

When  the  Convention  was  quite  ready  for  its 
work,  I  arose  to  a  question  of  privilege.  I  said: 
"It  seems  to  me  it  should  always  be  in  order  to  bear 
good  news  to  a  body  like  this.  Yesterday  the  State 
election  in  Oregon  occurred.  A  telegram  just  re- 
ceived announces  the  fact  that  the  election  was  a 
Union  victory  by  a  majority  of  five  thousand.  It 
is  the  first  gun  of  the  campaign.  It  shows  that  'all 
is  fair  in  the  West/  "  The  news  was  received  with 
vociferous  cheering. 

After  Mr.  Lincoln  was  nominated,  for  the  nomi- 
nation of  Vice-President  there  was  almost  an  even 
race  between  Senator  Daniel  S.  Dickinson,  of  New 
York,  and  Andrew  Johnson.  Just  before  adjourn- 
ment the  evening  before,  Parson  Brownlow  made 


190      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

a  speech,  in  which  he  named  his  old-time  Demo- 
cratic opponent,  Andrew  Johnson.  He  suggested 
that  the  Convention  should  nominate  him  for  the 
reasons:  I.  He  is  a  true  Union  man;  2.  It  will  en- 
hearten  the  Union  men  of  the  South;  3.  It  will 
make  the  rebels  mad.  Before  the  chair  announced 
the  result  of  the  vote  for  Vice-President,  I  said  to 
our  delegation,  who  had  voted  for  Schuyler  Colfax, 
"If  we  change  our  vote  to  Johnson  or  to  Dickinson, 
other  States  will  fall  into  line,  and  the  man  we  vote 
for  will  be  nominated."  After  a  brief  moment,  they 
said,  "Let  us  vote  for  Johnson."  I  arose,  and  said, 
"Oregon  changes  her  vote  from  Schuyler  Colfax 
to  Andrew  Johnson."  The  example  was  conta- 
gious. In  a  few  minutes  Johnson  was  nominated. 
I  was  one  of  a  committee  to  inform  Mr.  Lincoln, 
orally,  of  his  renomination.  He  said  in  reply,  that 
there  was  no  lack  of  Presidential  timber  when  the 
Convention  met ;  that  there  were  a  hundred  men  or 
more  as  well  capable,  and  as  deserving  of  the  honor, 
as  he;  "but,"  said  he,  "I  suppose  the  Convention 
was  very  much  in  the  condition  of  the  Irishman, 
who  was  crossing  a  swimming  stream  on  a  mare, 
with  a  colt  following.  The  Irishman  was  unhorsed. 
He  could  not  swim.  The  mare  soon  got  out  of  his 
reach.  Pie  seized  the  tail  of  the  colt.  The  load 
seemed  too  much  for  the  colt.  One  on  the  shore 
cried  out  to  the  man,  'Let  go  the  colt  and  take  the 
mare's  tail,'  to  which  the  Irishman  replied,  'Faith, 
sure,  and  this  is  no  time  to  be  afther  shwapping 
horses  when  I  'm  in  the  swim.'  So,"  said  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, "the  Convention  probably  felt  that  it  was  no 


ATTITUDE   OF  THE  ADVOCATE.  19I 

time  to  be  swapping  Presidents  when  we  were  still 
in  the  midst  of  war." 

I  have  referred  to  the  stand  I  took  in  favor  of 
Oregon  as  a  free  State.  When  South  Carolina 
seceded,  and  State  after  State  was  falling  into  line 
and  swinging  out  of  the  Union,  I  took  a  very 
prominent  and  determined  position  in  favor  of  the 
Union.  There  was  a  large  number  of  persons  who 
were  opposed  to  coercion  to  retain  States  in  the 
Union;  others  were  in  favor  of  the  secession  of 
States.  The  politicians  were  afraid  to  strike  out 
for  the  Union.  I  took  the  ground  that  every  true 
man  and  true  patriot  must  stand  by  the  Union,  even 
if  it  came  to  war.  I  preached  a  sermon  in  Portland 
on  the  duty  of  Christian  loyalty,  from  the  words 
of  Jesus,  "Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are 
Caesar's,  and  unto  God  the  things  that  are  God's." 
An  immense  crowd  heard  it.  The  house  was 
crowded,  and  hundreds  could  not  get  in ;  but  they 
thronged  the  doors  and  windows.  One  man,  a 
neighbor  and  an  old  man  of  seventy,  climbed  out 
over  the  back  seat,  and  went  out  swearing  that  he 

would  like  to  hang  that black  Republican  to 

the  first  lamp-post.  He  had  held  Federal  offices 
nearly  all  his  lifetime.  I  made  the  Advocate  ring 
out  for  the  Union,  and  I  took  the  stump  in  favor 
of  the  Union.  The  politicians  recovered  the  use  of 
their  tongues  when  they  saw  the  tide  setting  in  for 
the  flag  and  the  Union.  It  was  doubtless  owing  to 
my  activity  in  this  behalf  that  attention  was  turned 
to  me  as  a  proper  person  to  be  elected  United 
States  senator ;  and  that  induced  the  people  to  elect 


192      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

a  majority  in  favor  of  my  selection  for  that  high 
office.  It  was  a  great  blessing  to  me  that  the  move- 
ment did  not  succeed.  My  life  has  been  happier, 
and  probably  more  useful,  as  a  minister,  than  it 
could  have  been  in  another  line. 

CONTRASTS. 

A  beautiful  prophecy  in  the  seventy-second 
Psalm  says:  "There  shall  be  a  handful  of  corn  in 
the  earth  upon  the  top  of  the  mountains :  the  fruit 
thereof  shall  shake  like  Lebanon :  and  they  of  the 
city  shall  flourish  like  grass  of  the  earth."  It  is 
pleasant  to  see  that  the  season  of  sowing  and  plant- 
ing in  Oregon  when  I  was  there,  has  given  place 
to  the  harvest.  The  handful  of  corn  is  beginning 
to  shake  like  Lebanon.  They  of  the  cities  are 
flourishing  like  the  grass  of  the  earth.  The  harvest 
measures  of  "thirty,  sixty,  and  a  hundred-fold"  are 
being  realized  in  that  goodly  field.  The  condition 
of  things  in  Oregon  is  represented  in  the  highly- 
figurative  words  of  Amos  ix,  13:  "Behold,  the 
days  come,  saith  the  Lord,  that  the  plowman  shall 
overtake  the  reaper,  and  the  treader  of  grapes 
him  that  soweth  seed."  The  figurative  language 
of  the  Oriental  Scriptures  seems  all  too  pale  and 
weak  to  describe,  adequately,  the  contrasts  of  the 
present  days  with  those  in  which  forty-five  years 
ago  I  wrought  for  Jesus  in  the  distant  Occident. 

The  population  then  was  13,294;  now  it  is 
1,200,000.  Then  there  was  only  one  great  Terri- 
tory; now  there  are  eight  populous,  thrifty  States. 
Then  Methodism  was  small.    There  were,  in  1851, 


COMPARATIVE  FIGURES.  1 93 

15  ministers;  in  1897,  250;  an  increase  of  1667  per 
cent.  Churches  and  halls  in  1851,  4;  in  1897,  685; 
an  increase  of  1712.6  per  cent.  Value  of  Church 
property  in  1851,  $3,000;  in  1897,  $2,061,185;  an 
increase  of  687.5  Per  cent.  Church  members  in 
1 85 1,  750;  in  1897,  40,098;  an  increase  of  534.6 
per  cent. 

In  1 85 1,  Oregon  was  a  comparative  solitude. 
It  is  now  populous,  having  all  the  arts  and  ele- 
gancies of  an  advanced  civilization.  The  exports 
of  Oregon,  Washington,  and  Idaho  amount  to 
$32,000,000.  The  agricultural,  mineral,  and  tim- 
ber products  of  these  three  States  amount  to  $40,- 
000,000.  In  those  three  States  there  are  twelve 
hundred  miles  of  railroad. 

It  is  something  to  have  contributed  to  such 
stupendous  material  and  spiritual  results.  A  man 
who  devoted  the  most  vigorous  and  earnest  years 
of  his  life  to  aid  in  bringing  about  such  great  har- 
vests of  benefaction  to  man,  and  such  revenues  of 
glory  to  God,  may  imitate  the  self-congratulations 
of  Paul,  that  he  has  not  run  in  vain,  nor  labored  in 
vain,  nor  spent  his  strength  for  naught.  Those 
material  and  statistical  facts  may  be  measured  and 
tabulated.  Humanity  has  no  logarithms  large 
enough  to  compute  spiritual  results.  "He  who 
reapeth  receiveth  wages,  and  gathereth  fruit  unto 
life  eternal."  Who  can  fathom  eternity?  Who  can 
compute  the  fadeless  glory  of  the  immortal  state? 
13 


CHAPTER  XV. 

ON  April  i,  1864,  we  started  for  the  General 
Conference,  which  met  that  year  in  Philadel- 
phia. We  went  first  to  California ;  thence  by  over- 
land stage  we  proceeded  to  the  Missouri  River,  and 
from  there  by  rail  to  Philadelphia,  which  was 
reached  on  the  fifth  day  of  the  session.  Readers 
will  enjoy  reading  these  hurried  letters  to  the  Pa- 
cific Christian  Advocate,  headings  and  dates  just  as 
they  were  published  at  the  time : 

AN  EDITOR'S  JOTTINGS.— I. 

Ocean  Steamship  Pacific,  April  5,  1864. 

Dear  Advocate, — By  a  good  run,  we  reached 
Astoria  a  little  after  midnight  of  the  2d  inst.  At 
8  o'clock  A.  M.,  crossed  the  bar,  which  was  quite 
smooth.  Before  we  had  been  out  an  hour,  we  encoun- 
tered a  very  severe  southeaster.  It  was  the  most  so 
of  any  the  Captain  had  encountered  during  the  last 
winter,  and  it  lasted  until  Monday  noon.  This  hin- 
dered us  not  a  little.  After  being  out  some  thirty 
hours  from  the  bar,  we  had  made  less  than  a  hun- 
dred miles.  Has  the  reader  ever  been  on  shipboard 
during  a  gale  at  sea?  If  he  has,  he  can  appreciate 
our  condition.  The  howling  of  the  storm  among  the 
shrouds,  and  the  rushing  waves,  how  hungry  they 
look !  Waves  before  us  ;  waves  behind  us  ;  waves  to 
right  of  us ;  waves  to  left  of  us ;  rushing,  crashing, 
foaming,  seething  waves.  Long  waves  and  short 
waves,  reguar  and  irregular ;  waves  gentle  and  waves 
violent.      "They   that  go   down   to  the   sea   in   ships, 

194 


ON  THE  STEAMER.  1 95 

that  do  business  in  great  waters,  these  see  the  works 
of  the  Lord,  and  his  wonders  in  the  deep." 

But  that  our  good  ship  takes  the  sea  well  and 
has  but  a  light  cargo,  our  condition  would  be  critical. 
But  she  rides  the  waves  like  a  duck,  and,  in  the  teeth 
of  a  bitter  head-gale,  she  makes  progress. 

There  are  about  twenty  passengers  in  the  cabin, 
and  a  like  number  forward.  Captain  Burns  is  an 
admirable  seaman,  watchful,  capable,  and  attentive, 
and  we  feel  that  if  disaster  should  befall  us,  it  would 
be  through  no  fault  of  his. 

The  ship's  officers  and  hands  are  well-trained  and 
at  their  posts.  The  steward's  department  is  in  com- 
plete order,  both  as  to  quality  of  food,  neatness,  and 
attention.  Many  of  the  passengers  are  suffering  much 
from  sea-sickness ;  but,  as  the  storm  has  now  abated, 
we  shall  soon  see  them  convalescent. 

On  board  we  have  Mr.  Pierson  and  family,  and 
Mr.  W.  S.  Hussey  and  family,  all  except  Mr.  Pierson 
on  their  way  East.  We  hope  to  reach  San  Francisco 
to-morrow  evening,  when,  if  time  allows,  I  shall  add 
something  more  to  this  brief  line. 

River  Steamer  Yosemite,  April  7,  1864. 

Dear  Advocate, — We  arrived  at  San  Francisco 
at  5.30  o'clock  P.  M.  of  yesterday.  The  flags  at  the 
forts  and  the  Presidio  were  at  half-mast  on  account 
of  the  death  of  Major  Ringgold,  paymaster  United 
States  army.  San  Francisco  has  grown  almost  be- 
yond my  knowledge  since  1859,  when  I  last  saw  it. 
The  North  Beach  has  very  much  changed  in  five 
years,  being  now  densely  built  up.  But  the  principal 
change  is  in  the  southeastern  part  of  the  city,  where 
palatial  residences  and  fine  churches,  and  schools  and 
asylums,  give  evidence  of  solid,  substantial  improve- 
ment.    Our  stay  in  the  city  was  so  brief  as  to  mve 


196      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

little  opportunity  for  sight-seeing;  but  by  the  kind- 
ness of  N.  P.  Perrine,  formerly  of  Portland,  I  was 
enabled  to  see  the  different  parts  of  this  New  York 
of  the  Pacific.  Among  other  places,  we,  of  course, 
visited  the  office  of  the  California  Christian  Advocate 
and  Methodist  Book  Depository.  Brother  Thomas, 
the  editor,  and  Brother  McElroy,  the  agent,  greeted 
us  cordially.  The  depository  is  a  success,  and  our 
California  brethren  are  entitled  to  credit  for  their  far- 
sightedness and  enterprise. 

"Mine  host"  of  the  International,  Brother  Wey- 
gant,  is  sharing  a  fair  amount  of  patronage.  His 
present  hotel  is  much  more  commodious,  and  con- 
venient than  the  Tremont  House,  which  he  formerly 
kept. 

Brother  Blain,  the  pastor  of  the  Howard  Street 
charge,  has  erected  a  very  fine  church  edifice,  and  is 
sharing  a  good  degree  of  prosperity.  His  congre- 
gation is  as  large  as  that  of  any  Protestant  Church 
in  the  city,  and  a  very  interesting  work  of  revival  is 
in  progress. 

With  Dr.  Wyeth,  pastor  of  the  Powell  Street 
Church,  a  pleasant  acquaintance  was  formed.  This 
church  has  been  refitted  and  refurnished,  and  will  be 
reopened  next  Sabbath  for  public  worship. 

The  Russ  House,  the  Masonic  Temple,  and  other 
stately  piles  of  masonry,  are  monuments  of  the  enter- 
prise and  wealth  of  San  Francisco.  The  work  of  re- 
covering the  sunken  Comanche  is  said  to  be  nearly 
completed.  It  will  be  some  time,  however,  before  the 
ironclad  will  be  ready  for  use  as  a  means  of  defense 
for  this  port  and  city.  A  terrific  storm  has  been  rag- 
ing over  the  line  of  the  telegraph,  between  this  place 
and  Salt  Lake,  stopping  all  communication  East.  To- 
day it  is  resumed. 

Rev.   Brethren   Taylor  and    Lucas,   from    British 


AT  STRAWBERRY,  CALIFORNIA.  1 97 

Columbia,  are  on  their  way  East,  the  former  over- 
land, and  the  latter  by  sea.  I  hope  to  overhaul 
Brother  Taylor  at  Virginia  City,  and  proceed  in  com- 
pany with  him,  East. 

The  Yoscmite,  on  board  which  I  write  this,  is  a 
beautiful  boat.  Our  number  of  passengers  is  not 
large,  perhaps  a  hundred  in  all.  Among  them  is  a 
man  who  is  peddling  a  pamphlet  purporting  to  be 
a  heavenly  dispatch  by  spiritual  telegraph.  It  is  a 
singular  compound  of  Scripture,  nonsense,  and  hum- 
buggery,  and,  from  the  way  the  peddler  draws  com- 
parisons and  illustrations,  there  is  little  doubt  that  he 
will  sell  his  book,  whether  the  buyers  get  the  worth 
of  their  money  or  not. 

I  hope  to  be  able  to  jot  a  brief  line  from  Virginia 
City, and  another  from  Brigham  Young's  country.  Mr. 
Young,  readers  will  observe,  is  described  by  Artemus 
Ward  as  "somewhat  married."    Till  my  next,  adieu. 

AN  EDITOR'S  JOTTINGS.— II. 

Strawberry,  Cae.,  April  p,  1864. 

Dear  Advocate, — This  isa  singular,  out-of-the- 
way  place,  and  would  never  have  figured  in  public 
had  not  the  glittering  treasures  of  Washoe  tempted 
the  cupidity  of  the  great  American  people ;  nor  then, 
except  that  Strawberry  lies  in  the  direct  path  of  travel 
to  the  silver-mines  of  Nevada  Territory.  There  is 
hope  for  some  places  in  Oregon  from  this  view  of  the 
case.  The  silver  and  gold  deposits  of  Idaho  and 
Southern  Oregon  will  equal,  if  they  do  not  rival,  those 
of  Nevada,  and  who  can  tell  what  places,  that  had 
seemed  doomed  to  "waste  their  sweetness  on  the  desert 
air,"  shall  come  up  into  importance,  and  yet  thrill 
with  the  pulsation  of  active,  earnest  business,  pursued 
by  theorizing  multitudes? 


198      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

Our  route  from  Sacramento  was  by  rail  to  Folsom, 
twenty-two  miles.  Hence  we  came  by  Concord 
coaches  to  Placerville,  twenty-seven  miles.  Three 
coaches,  each  drawn  by  six  horses,  were  crowded  with 
passengers,  carrying,  in  all,  some  thirty  persons.  From 
Placerville  to  this  place,  forty-seven  miles,  mud- 
wagons  supersede  the  coaches,  and  the  travel  is 
slower,  on  account  of  the  mud  and  the  greater  un- 
evenness  of  the  road. 

California  has  put  on  her  holiday  attire.  Ver- 
dure and  beauty  smile  from  every  hillside  and  val- 
ley. The  rains  have  come  and  gladdened  the  land, 
giving  good  promise  of  "seed  to  the  sower  and  bread 
to  the  eater."  Flour  speculators  who  have  counted 
on  a  drought  in  California,  and  a  high  price  of  bread- 
stuffs,  may  as  well  abandon  their  delusive  hopes ;  for 
the  wheat-crop  in  California,  while  it  may  fall  short 
01  the  usual  yield,  will  yet  be  a  fair  one. 

We  spent  a  pleasant  evening  with  Rev.  T.  S. 
Dunn,  from  whom  we  learned  that  his  Sunday-school 
numbered  some  one  hundred  scholars,  his  Church 
eighty  members,  and  his  ordinary  congregation  from 
two  hundred  and  fifty  to  four  hundred  persons.  The 
church  edifice  is  large  and  eligibly  situated.  It  is  of 
brick,  and  has  been  costly.  Unfortunately,  a  debt  of 
seven  thousand  dollars  presses  the  trustees. 

The  mail  is  about  to  close,  and  this  epistle  must 
be  abruptly  ended.  Of  the  route  to  Strawberry  and 
Virginia  City  remark  must  be  deferred  until  my  next. 

Strawberry  V  alley,  April  g,  1864. 

.  .  .  My  last,  from  this  place,  was  quite  too 
brief  and  desultory.  In  this  it  is  proposed  to  speak 
more  in  detail.  The  route  from  Placerville  to  Straw- 
berry Valley  is  very  mountainous, .  and  the  scenery 
of  the  grandest.     We  were  twelve  hours  in  making 


SIERRA    NEVADA    MOUNTAINS.  1 99 

it,  the  roads  being  much  injured  by  the  late  storms. 
We  are  now  within  seven  miles  of  the  summit  of  the 
Sierra  Nevada  Mountains,  and  are  six  thousand  seven 
hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  We  pass, 
to-morrow  morning,  a  rocky  point  some  ten  thou- 
sand feet  above  the  sea-level. 

Among  our  passengers  are  Professor  Whitney, 
well  known  as  a  geologist,  and  now  engaged  in 
making  a  survey  of  the  State  of  California,  as  State 
geologist,  and  Professor  King,  of  New  York,  also 
a  geologist.  I  learn  from  the  former  that  Mount 
Shasta  is  ascertained  to  be  fourteen  thousand  four 
hundred  and  forty  feet  in  height.  It  is  claimed 
by  some  Californians  that  Shasta  is  higher  than 
Mount  Hood.  If  Shasta  overtops  her  Oregon 
sister,  Mount  Hood  is  not  as  high  as  has  been 
supposed.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  winter  scenes. 
The  snow  on  the  summit  is  nearly  six  feet  deep,  owing 
to  the  recent  heavy  fall  of  snow.  Had  the  ground 
been  frozen  when  it  fell,  it  is  supposed  the  snow 
would  have  been  ten  feet  deep.  Sleighs  are  at  the  door 
to  carry  us  eleven  miles  over  the  snow-belts ;  the  air 
without  is  sharp  and  bracing,  and  freezing;  within, 
a  blazing  fire  on  the  hearth  reminds  one  of  the  good 
old  New  York  winters.  The  hotel,  kept  by  Crosby  & 
Swift,  is  large  and  well  furnished  for  the  place,  and 
yet  they  have  not  accommodations  for  their  numer- 
ous guests.  Last  night  there  were  over  a  hundred. 
To-night  there  are  nearly  as  many. 

At  four  and  a  half  o'clock  to-morrow  the  stage 
leaves  for  Virginia  City,  which  will  be  reached,  it 
is  expected,  by  a  little  after  noon. 

The  silver  mines  of  Washoe  are  yielding  more 
largely  of  late  than  usual,  and  the  excitement  is  cor- 
respondingly increased.  Numbers  are  rushing  there 
from  all  parts  of  California.     Many  of  them  will  re- 


200      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

turn  to  their  homes  poorer  and  sadder  than  they 
were  when  leaving.  Till  you  receive  a  line  from  Vir- 
ginia City,  adieu. 

EDITORIAL   LETTER— TRAVEL  ON  THE  PLAINS.— III. 
Virginia  City,  N.  T.,  April  //,  1864. 

Dear  Advocate:, — This  morning  we  are  off  at 
six  and  a  half  o'clock  for  Reese  River;  but,  before 
starting,  a  few  moments  are  snatched  to  pen  the  in- 
cidents up  to  the  present,  and  record  such  general 
facts  and  reflections  as  they  may  suggest.  From 
Strawberry  Valley  to  Virginia  City  the  route  passes 
over  the  summit  of  the  Sierras,  through  the  valley 
of  Lake  Tahoe,  and  thence  over  mountain  ranges 
to  Carson  Valley.  Crossing  the  valley  in  a  south- 
eastern direction,  and  traversing  the  foothills  of  the 
mountains  skirting  on  the  east,  you  ascend  a  spur 
of  the  loftiest  peak,  Mount  Davidson,  and  pass,  in 
succession,  Silver  City,  Gold  Mountain,  and  last,  but 
not  least,  Virginia  City,  probably  about  the  busiest 
place,  according  to  its  population,  on  the  continent, 
if  not  in  the  world. 

The  sleigh-ride  was  anything  but  pleasant.  The 
snow  was  so  deep  and  the  road  so  poorly  beaten  that 
progress  was  slow  and  somewhat  difficult.  To  add 
to  our  trouble,  we  were  meeting  or  overtaking  pack- 
trains  and  vehicles,  and  to  get  past  them  was  no  trivial 
matter,  detaining  us  vexatiously.  In  one  instance 
mula  would  not  give  road,  and  would  not  travel  faster 
than  a  walk,  and  several  passengers  and  the  driver 
had,  at  last,  literally  to  put  him  out  of  the  way;  but 
not  until  he  had  fallen  with  his  heavy  pack.  In  an- 
other, meeting  a  carriage  with  a  family,  all  hands 
were  compelled  to  take  hold  and  lift  the  carriage  out 
of  the  road,  and  afterwards,  lift  it  back  again. 


TAHOE   LAKE — CARSON  RIVER.  201 

The  road  through  the  valley  of  the  lake,  and 
from  there  to  this  point,  is,  nearly  all  the  distance, 
graded,  and  is  an  excellent  one,  as  may  be  inferred 
when  it  is  stated  that  the  drive  over  it  is,  in  good 
weather,  at  the  rate  of  from  six  to  ten  miles  an  hour. 
A  good  story  is  told  of  Horace  Greeley  in  connection 
with  this  route.  He  suggested  to  Monk,  the  driver, 
that  he  wanted  to  be  in  Placerville  at  a  given  hour. 
Over  the  mountains,  along  dizzy  slopes,  where  craggy 
peaks  majestically  frowned  five  hundred  feet  above 
the  road,  and  frightful  declivities  yawned  as  many  feet 
below,  Monk  drove  his  noble  six-horse  team  in  dash- 
ing, furious  style,  until  the  old  philosopher  became 
slightly  nervous,  and  he  suggested  to  our  Jehu  not 
to  drive  so  fast;  that,  if  they  should  be  a  little  late, 
he  would  rather  be  late  than  to  run  such  hazards. 
Monk  would  whip  up  his  hofses  afresh,  and  tell  his 
agitated  rider,  "Hold  on  to  your  seat,  Horace,  and 
we  shall  get  through  all  right." 

Tahoe  is  the  Indian  name  for  the  lake  along  which 
we  passed.  It  denotes  clear  water.  The  lake  is 
nestled  on  the  summit  of  the  Sierras,  and,  in  the 
morning  sunbeams,  surrounded  by  snowclad  peaks, 
it  glistened  before  us  like  a  bright  setting  in  a  coronal 
of  beauty.  The  lake  is  twenty-two  miles  long,  by 
about  eleven  or  twelve  wide,  and  the  water  is  almost 
transparently  clear.  Carson  Valley,  how  shall  it  be 
described?  Viewed  from  the  heights  adown  which 
we  drove  to  reach  it,  the  absence  of  timber  or  ver- 
dure, and  the  jagged  and  ruptured  mountains  sur- 
rounding it,  made  it  appear  grand ;  but  it  was  the 
grandeur  of  desolation.  It  was  awful.  The  Carson 
River  is  a  small  stream,  fed  by  mountain  lakes, 
and  which  evaporates  some  seventy-five  or  a  hundred 
miles  below.  The  valley  is  in  places  from  six  to 
ten   miles  wide,  and   in   others  from   half  a   mile  to 


202      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

a  mile.  Its  length  is  about  seventy-five  miles.  A 
couple  of  miles  from  Carson  City  is  a  hot  spring,  and 
the  penitentiary  incloses  it;  whether  to  douse  the  re- 
fractory, or  scour  them  from  vice  and  vermin,  does 
not  appear.  Virginia  City,  about  a  thousand  feet 
above  the  valley,  is  six  thousand  two  hundred  feet 
above  the  sea-level.  It  lies  southeast  by  northwest. 
Virginia  City  has  sixteen  thousand  inhabitants,  and 
numerous  quartz-mills  and  various  mining  operations 
in  this  part  of  the  country  make  these  once  dreary 
solitudes  vocal  with  the  songs  of  industry  and  the 
hum  of  business.  The  discoverer  of  these  mines  was. 
a  man  named  Finney,  from  Virginia,  who  went  by 
the  name  of  Old  Virginia,  and  hence  the  name  of 
the  city.  It  is  stated  that  he  sold  the  Ophir  or  the 
Gould  and  Curry  claim  since,  and  now  worth  mil- 
lions, for  a  mustang  pony  and  a  bottle  of  whisky.  He 
afterwards  became  the  owner,  by  discovery,  of  the 
Gold  Mountain  mines,  and,  as  he  had  fallen  in  debt 
for  a  winter's  washing,  he  commuted  his  account  with 
the  washerwoman  by  giving  her  ten  feet  of  his  last 
found  claim.  This  she  retains,  and  it  is  said  it  could 
be  cashed  for  ten  thousand  dollars  a  foot.  Poor  Old 
Virginia  died  comparatively  poor  and  prematurely. 
He  parted  with  his  last  claim,  as  he  had  the  first,  for 
a  mere  song,  and  lost  his  life  by  mounting  a  spiking 
pony,  which  threw  him  upon  his  head,  inflicting  a 
fatal  wound.  A  jolly  fellow,  who  had  come  into  pos- 
session of  fifty  thousand  or  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  by  the  sale  of  "feet,"  went  and  had  a  long 
and  heavy  spree  over  his  good  fortune.  He  was  a 
passenger  with  us  from  Placerville  to  Strawberry 
Valley,  and,  stepping  from  the  stage  while  it  was  in 
motion,  his  head  being  unbalanced  by  his  too  free 
indulgence,  he  rolled  down  the  mountain  side  some 
two  hundred  or  three  hundred  feet,  and  brought  up 


SILVER  MINING.  203 

against  a  tree,  nearly  butting  his  life  out.  Poor 
Charley!  the  fate  of  Old  Virginia  seems  to  have  little 
warning  for  him. 

Only  five  years  have  passed  since  these  Washoe 
siver-mincs  were  fairly  discovered,  and  now  they  are 
adding  many  millions  yearly  to  the  bullion  of  the 
world.  When  these  facts  are  considered,  the  silver- 
mines  of  Owyhee  and  Bannock  and  Santiam  give 
promise  of  a  brilliant  and  not  distant  future  for  our 
part  of  the  world. 

Brother  Anthony,  the  Methodist  pastor  here,  has 
great  prosperity.  A  spirit  of  revival  prevails,  and  his 
people  cordially  and  well  sustain  him.  A  tasteful, 
brick  church  edifice,  worth  some  forty-five  thousand 
dollars,  contains  a  weekly  congregation  of  from  two 
hundred  and  fifty  to  four  hundred.  His  membership, 
all  included,  is  one  hundred  and  fifty.  A  funded 
debt  of  twelve  thousand  dollars  rests  upon  the  prop- 
erty, the  interest  upon  which  is  paid  from  the  rent 
of  pews.  The  writer  preached  last  evening  to  a  large 
and  attentive  audience.  Off  now  for  Salt  Lake,  from 
which  place  another  line  may  be  expected. 

AN  EDITOR'S  JOURNEYINGS.— IV. 

Great  Sai/t  Lake  City,  U.  T.,  April  i6>  1864. 

Dear  Advocate, — At  the  risk  of  being  tedious 
and  repetitious,  attention  is  again  called  to  the  silver- 
mining  operations  in  this  part  of  the  world.  Silver 
ledges  have  been  discovered  in  the  vicinity  of  Vir- 
ginia City,  and  also  on  Reese  River  one  hundred 
and  eighty  miles  east,  on  the  Humboldt,  and  even  in 
the  mountain  ranges  which  border  on  Utah  Territory. 
To-day  I  examined  specimens  of  silver  and  lead  ore 
t:iken  from  mines  only  twenty  miles  from  this  city. 

During  my  stay  in  Virginia  City  I  visited  the  far- 


204      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK'. 

famed  Gould  and  Curry  mines  and  their  silver  mill- 
ing works.  Entering  by  a  shaft  at  the  top,  a  descent 
of  four  hundred  feet  was  made,  and  the  various  tun- 
nels, penetrating  the  mountain  seven  hundred  feet, 
were  traversed.  As  fast  as  excavations  are  made, 
solid  frameworks  are  constructed  to  support  the  pres- 
sure of  the  earth  from  above. 

The  milling  works  of  the  company  are  of  the  finest. 
They  cost  about  one  million  dollars.  The  engine 
they  now  have,  and  which  drives  their  machinery,  is 
of  one  hundred  and  fifty  horse-power.  Another  is 
being  erected,  the  present  one  being  unequal  to  their 
demand.  The  new  one  is  to  be  of  two  hundred  and 
sixty  horse-power.  This  mill  has  a  battery  of  forty 
stamps,  and  runs  five  large  and  five  smaller  amalga- 
mators, besides  grinding  their  quartz  preparatory  to 
amalgamation.  By  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Frank  Parke, 
the  superintendent  of  the  amalgamation  and  refining 
departments,  the  whole  process  of  reducing  the  ore 
to  bullion  was  explained,  and  it  is  here  repeated,  for 
the  information  of  those  curious  in  such  matters. 

The  quartz  is  first  subjected  to  the  action  of  bat- 
teries of  stamps,  which  pulverize  it  fine.  It  is  then 
mixed  with  certain  proportions  of  common  salt,  cop- 
peras, and  blue  vitriol  and  quicksilver.  When  thor- 
oughly amalgamated,  the  sand  is  sluiced  off,  and  the 
amalgam  is  then  subjected  to  pressure,  to  strain  off 
the  quicksilver,  and  the  remaining  quicksilver  is  sep- 
arated from  the  mass  by  retorting. 

The  metal,  including  gold  and  silver,  is  melted 
down  into  bricks,  assayed  and  stamped,  and  sent  to 
England  to  be  again  refined  and  the  gold  separated 
from  the  silver,  our  people  not  having  yet  acquired  the 
art  of  this  last  process.  When  it  is  remembered  that 
the  silver-mines  and  mills  already  working  yield  some 
two  million  dollars  a  month,  and  that  new  discover- 


DESERT  PRODUCTIONS.  205 

ies  are  constantly  being  made,  this  branch  of  enter- 
prise, it  is  seen,  will  become  increasingly  important. 

Our  route  from  Virginia  City  to  this  place  pre- 
sented a  field  of  observation  and  thought  wholly  new. 
Mountains,  valleys,  and  plains  are  the  order  of  suc- 
cessive days  of  travel,  with  the  invariable  accompani- 
ment of  sage,  prickly  pear,  and  alkali-beds. 

Large  fields  of  common  salt  are  being  discovered, 
which  must  be  of  exceeding  value  in  this  remote 
inland  country.  There  is  an  almost  total  absence  of 
timber,  except  sage-brush  and  a  variety  of  stunted 
cedar.  Water,  too,  is  very  scarce,  and  the  Overland 
Mail  Company  have  to  transport  water  a  distance  of 
twenty  or  thirty  miles.  Carson,  Truckee,  Reese,  and 
Humboldt  Rivers,  receiving  the  melted  snows  of  the 
Sierras,  bear  them  down  the  desert  only  a  few  miles, 
when  they  are  evaporated,  and  the  river  bed  is  dry. 

It  must  not  be  omitted  to  speak  of  the  total  absence 
of  animal  life.  For  six  hundred  miles,  only  one 
prairie-hen,  one  hare,  and  a  few  ravens  were  seen. 
Unbroken  silence  wraps  the  desert  in  profound  gloom. 
Fort  Crittenden,  the  last  point  of  importance  passed 
before  reaching  Salt  Lake,  is  distant  from  this  city 
forty  miles.  Here,  as  at  Austin,  on  Reese  River,  the 
buildings  are  of  adobes,  a  sun-dried  brick,  which,  as 
it  seldom  rains  here,  answer  a  good  purpose.  Gen- 
eral Johnston  caused  some  two  hundred  or  three  hun- 
dred of  these  to  be  erected  here  while  quartered  in 
Utah. 

The  prospect  of  reaching  Philadelphia  by  the  open- 
ing of  Conference  is  clouded  by  two  facts :  first,  the 
prevalence  of  an  unusual  snowstorm  in  the  moun- 
tains, blockading  the  roads ;  and  secondly,  the  news 
which  reaches  us  by  telegraph,  of  a  brush  between 
the  Cheyennes  and  the  Colorado  troops  on  the  stage 
road,  eighty  miles  east  from  Denver.     But  I  hope,  in 


206      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

spite  of  these  difficulties,  to  reach  the  Conference  dur- 
ing its  first  week.  Of  Salt  Lake,  notice  will  be  made 
in  my  next. 

The  following  telegram,  from  the  editor  to  his 
wife,  has  been  received  since  our  last: 

Atchison,  K.  T.,  May  2y  1864. 

''Delayed — weary — well.  In  Philadelphia,  Thurs- 
day.    No  interruption  from  Indians." 

AN  EDITOR  IN  THE  DESERT.— V. 

Rock  Point,  220  Mii.es  East  ) 

Great  Salt  Lake,  April  20, 1864.  \ 

Utah  Territory  embraces  many  features  which 
have  interest  for  the  public.  Our  route  from  Austin 
to  Great  Salt  Lake  lay  through  an  unpeopled  soli- 
tude, the  path  being  literally  strewed  with  the  car- 
casses of  animals,  and  lined  with  the  graves  of  emi- 
grants. Of  course  we  saw  nothing  of  the  southern 
part  of  the  Territory,  which  is  said  to  be  fertile  and 
considerably  settled  by  Mormons.  From  the  oppor- 
tunities I  had  of  observing  Mormonism — and  they 
were  rather  limited — the  conclusion  is  reached  that, 
in  point  of  political  economy,  it  is  a  failure.  The 
lands  susceptible  of  husbandry  are  not  well  tilled,  and, 
while  many  of  the  people  may  be  industrious  and 
some  of  them  thrifty,  they  are  generally  poor,  squalid, 
ignorant,  and  degraded.  They  consist,  in  large  part, 
of  foreigners:  English,  Welsh,  Scotch,  Norwegians, 
and  Danes.  The  polygamy  does  not  tend  to  social 
order  and  comfort,  but  the  reverse.  At  one  place 
where  we  stopped,  the  landlord  has  two  wives,  who 
have  not  spoken  to  each  other  since  the  second  wife 
was  installed.  They  live  in  separate  houses,  within 
a  stone's-throw  of  each  other  ;  and  if  they  do  not  throw 


MORMONISM — MORMON  CHILDREN.  207 

stones  at  one  another,  there  is  no  more  intercourse 
between  them  than  between  a  Turk  and  a  Christian. 
The  husband  spends  a  week  with  one,  and  then  a  week 
with  the  other.  In  another  place  where  we  dined, 
the  Mormon  bishop,  our  host,  has  three  wives, 
sisters,  and  New  Hampshire  women.  They  did  not 
appear  happy.  The  children  of  this  arrangement  are 
far  from  being  as  comely,  smart,  and  intelligent-ap- 
pearing as  those  outside  of  Mormondom.  You  find 
no  books  in  the  Mormon  houses  I  entered,  except 
yellow-covered  literature,  which  the  female  inmates 
of  these  houses  spend  their  time  in  reading.  I  cate- 
chised the  children  two  or  three  times,  and  they  were 
nearly  as  ignorant  as  horseblocks,  and  as  stupid  as 
unwashed  papooses.  It  may,  perhaps,  be  supposed 
that  the  writer  is  prejudiced,  and  that,  therefore,  his 
statements  should  be  abated  somewhat.  Let  it  be 
observed  that  he  states  only  what  he  saw  and  what 
he  gathered  from  those  who  claimed  to  be  informed, 
and  who  appeared  to  be  truthful. 

The  population  of  Utah  Territory  is  variously  es- 
timated at  from  sixty  thousand  to  eighty  thousand, 
and  even  one  hundred  thousand.  The  latter  is  the 
figure  claimed  by  the  Mormons.  The  first  is  probably 
nearest  the  truth.  The  capital  was  located,  some  years 
since,  at  Fillmore,  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  south 
from  Salt  Lake  City;  but  the  Legislature,  from  year 
to  year,  persists  in  adjourning  to  Great  Salt  Lake 
City. 

Governor  Doty  being  absent  from  the  Territory, 
the  secretary  of  the  Territory,  Mr.  Reed,  is  acting 
governor  in  his  stead.  We  formed  a  pleasant  ac- 
quaintance with  him. 

Great  Salt  Lake  City  lies  on  a  declivity  on  the 
eastern  slope  of  the  valley,  and  about  two  miles  east 
from  the  Great  Salt  Lake.     The  population  is  esti- 


2o8      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

mated  at  from  eight  thousand  to  twelve  thousand. 
The  houses  are  mostly  built  of  adobe,  or  sun-dried 
bricks;  they  are  small,  unpainted,  and  with  earthen 
floors,  usually  covered  with  ducking  or  buffalo  robes. 
The  streets  are  regularly  laid  out,  and  irrigated  by 
streams  running  along  between  the  sidewalks  and 
roadways. 

Take  out  the  theater,  the  State-house,  and  a  few 
other  public  buildings,  Brigham  Young's,  and  a  few 
other  private  residences,  the  buildings  of  this  city  are 
small,  unsightly,  and  uninviting. 

Brigham  Young's  residence,  tithing-house,  and 
family  schoolhouse,  are  inclosed  within  strong  stone 
walls,  some  ten  feet  high,  and  the  entrances  are 
guarded  by  an  armed  sentinel.  We  did  not  see  Mr. 
Young,  but  we  learned  that  he  is  sixty-three  years  of 
age  and  in  good  preservation.  His  food  is  plain  and  his 
habits  are  regular.  He  eschews  intemperance  in  the 
use  of  intoxicating  liquors,  and  is  evidently  desirous 
of  living  as  long  as  he  may. 

We  inspected  the  foundations  of  the  great  Mormon 
temple,  begun  some  eight  or  nine  years  ago,  but  not 
yet  raised  above  the  level  of  the  ground  around  them. 
They  are  built  of  granite,  the  blocks  being  from  three 
to  four  or  six  feet  by  a  foot  thick.  The  walls  are 
about  nine  feet  thick  and  twelve  feet  high.  Under 
each  basement  window  and  doorway  are  inverted 
arches,  and  between  the  windows  are  erect  arches. 
At  the  two  east  corners  are  circular  cisterns  about 
twelve  feet  in  diameter  by  an  equal  depth.  They  are 
probably  baptismal  fonts.  The  building  is  about 
eighty  by  one  hundred  feet.  We  did  not  measure  it. 
It  will  never  be  finished.  Mormonism  can  not  sur- 
vive. Already  it  contains  the  elements  of  its  own  de- 
struction. Faction  and  strife  are  at  work,  and,  at 
Brigham's  death,  if  not  before,  the  whole  system  will 


ORE  AT  SALT  LAKE   DESERT.  200, 

be  whelmed  in  a  common  overthrow.  It  is  a  singular 
and  significant  fact  that  many  of  the  children  of  Mor- 
mon parents  are  heartily  disgusted  with  Mormonism, 
and  repudiate  its  sensual,  polygamous  institutions. 

We  recommend  the  American  Bible  Society  to 
scatter  the  word  of  God  among  the  people,  and  Chris- 
tian Churches  to  send  missionaries  there,  and  soon 
Utah  shall  be  redeemed.  The  Great  Salt  Lake  is  a 
beautiful  sheet  of  water,  one  hundred  and  thirty  miles 
long  by  from  thirty  to  fifty  wide.  It  is  fed  by  the 
Weber  and  Bear  Rivers,  and  by  other  less  consider- 
able streams.  It  is  said  to  have  no  outlet.  The  val- 
ley of  the  Weber  is  fertile  and  well  cultivated.  Echo 
Canon,  through  which  we  pass  after  leaving  the 
Weber,  is  about  twenty  miles  long  by  from  half  a  mile 
to  a  mile  and  a  half  wide.  Here,  in  1857,  the  Mor- 
mons fortified  against  the  forces  of  Uncle  Sam.  The 
ruins  of  their  works  are  yet  apparent.  Camp  Doug- 
las is  the  military  post,  now  occupied  by  General  Con- 
ner and  some  two  regiments  of  United  States  troops. 
It  is  about  three  miles  from  Salt  Lake  City.  Our 
progress  eastward  is  slow,  of  which — more  anon. 

EDITORIAL  CORRESPONDENCE.— V 

Atchison,  Kansas,  May  2,  1864. 

Dear  Advocate;, — The  trip  to  this  place  from 
Salt  Lake  would  have  been  a  most  pleasant  one  but 
for  two  or  three  drawbacks  which  greatly  mar  it. 
A  full  load  of  passengers — i.  c,  three  on  a  seat,  mak- 
ing nine  in  all — may  do  for  a  few  miles,  or  a  few 
score  of  them,  but  when  this  press  is  kept  up  for 
one  thousand  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  it  becomes 
anything  but  pleasant.  When,  to  this,  are  added 
various  less  discomforts,  the  journey  hither  by  stage 
becomes   decidedly  tedious.     If  the   eastern  part  of 


2IO      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK*. 

this  line  were  as  well  constructed  and  as  thoroughly 
worked  as  the  western,  the  overland  trip  would  be 
but  an  agreeable  recreation.  But  justice  to  truth  com- 
pels me  to  show  a  different  phase  of  the  subject.  The 
stage-line  from  Salt  Lake  to  the  Missouri  is  badly 
managed.  The  stock  is  poor  and  slow;  many  of  the 
drivers  are  cross  and  insolent ;  the  stages  (mud 
wagons)  are  contracted  and  inconvenient;  the  con- 
nections are  not  well  made,  and  mails  and  passengers 
are  laid  over  without  so  much  as  saying,  "By  your 
leave,  sir."  Such,  at  least,  was  our  experience.  At 
Weber  River  we  were  detained  three  hours ;  at  Green 
River,  twelve ;  at  Rock  Point,  twenty-four ;  at  Sulphur 
Springs,  eighteen  or  twenty;  and  at  Fort  Halleck, 
fourteen  hours.  The  reason  alleged  was  that  the 
crowd  of  passengers  from  the  East,  and  a  severe  snow- 
storm which  occurred  about  the  first  of  April,  had 
deranged  the  plans  of  the  agents,  and  had  rendered 
it  impracticable  to  put  us  forward  in  schedule  time. 
We,  however,  failed  to  see  the  force  of  the  argument ; 
for  when  we  were  laid  over,  there  were  animals  to 
take  us,  and  the  roads  and  weather  were  favorable. 
Only  for  about  seventy  miles  of  the  entire  route  were 
the  roads  in  bad  condition.  In  the  Park,  some  fifteen 
miles  east  of  Salt  Lake,  and  along  the  Bitter  Water 
Creek  and  over  Bridgets  Pass,  the  roads  were  heavy 
from  the  melting  of  the  snows.  In  the  pass  we  rode 
over  drifts  that  were  from  four  to  six  feet  deep.  The 
fare  along  the  line  is  rather  coarse  and  ordinary  than 
otherwise.  It  consists  of  fried  bacon  and  saleratus 
biscuit  and  some  indifferent  coffee,  served  up  in  not 
the  most  neat  and  inviting  manner.  The  price  for 
such  a  meal  was  usually  one  dollar.  Along  toward  the 
Missouri  seventy-five  cents  is  charged,  and,  as  you 
enter  Nebraska  and  Kansas,  the  food  improves  in 
neatness,  variety,  and  wholesomeness. 


NEBRASKA  — KANSAS — A  TCHISON.  2 1 1 

So  far  we  have  traversed  three  States  and  five 
Territories.  The  general  description  which  was  given 
of  the  mines  and  mining  interests  of  Nevada  will  an- 
swer tolerably  of  Colorado,  with  this  difference :  Colo- 
rado is  a  gold-quartz  mining  country,  the  climate  is 
more  rigorous,  and  the  water  is  both  more  abundant 
and  wholesome. 

Nebraska  is  a  level,  cold  country,  with  a  light 
soil,  comparatively  little  timber,  and  evidently  not  well 
adapted  to  agriculture,  owing  to  its  altitude  and  want 
of  strength  of  soil.  Grass,  however,  does  well,  and 
it  is  probably  adapted  to  grazing  purposes.  The  por- 
tion of  Idaho  through  which  we  passed  is  much  the 
same  in  its  general  features  as  Nebraska. 

Kansas  is  a  rolling,  open  country,  with  little  timber 
except  along  the  streams.  The  swells  are  not  high,  but 
they  stretch  out  in  length  like  long  sea-waves.  The 
soil  is  of  the  best,  especially  along  the  Kansas  River. 
The  timber  is  mostly  black-walnut,  hickory,  cotton- 
wood,  and  oak.  Kansas  is  poorly  farmed.  The  lack 
of  thorough  husbandry  is  quite  evident  to  the  passing 
traveler.  The  population  is  estimated  at  from  one 
hundred  thousand  to  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
thousand.  The  people  of  the  State  are  loyal,  and 
they  have  given  good  proof  of  the  same  by  furnish- 
ing sixteen  white  regiments,  and  quite  three  colored 
ones,  to  defend  the  endangered  nationality  and  sup- 
press the  existing  rebellion. 

Atchison  is  a  thriving  town  of  about  three  or  four 
thousand  resident  population.  Its  chief  interest  lies 
in  its  being  the  starting  point  of  travel  and  commerce 
across  the  desert.  Outfits  are  here  made,  and  hence 
depart  the  emigrants  and  stage  passengers  for  Colo- 
rado, Idaho,  Utah,  Nevada,  California,  Oregon,  and 
Washington.  This  year  the  emigration  westward  is 
much    larger    than    ever    before.      Some    are    drawn 


212      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

thitherward  by  the  lure  of  gold,  some  by  the  love  of 
adventure,  some  by  a  restless  tendency  which  is 
chronic  among  many  of  the  American  people,  and 
still  others  by  a  desire  to  escape  the  draft  and  evade 
the  consequences  of  the  rebellion  in  which  they  have 
participated.  But  whatever  may  be  the  cause,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  emigration  across  the  plains 
this  year  is  immense.  The  whole  of  our  route  from 
Salt  Lake  was  made  lively  by  the  caravans  constantly 
met.  Not  a  day  passed  in  which  we  did  not  meet 
from  thirty  to  two  hundred  wagons,  and  we  were  told 
that  the  tide  of  travel,  by  the  way  of  Omaha  and 
other  points,  is  little,  if  any,  less  than  by  this  route. 
Most  of  the  emigrants  are  going  to  East  Bannock 
and  Boise,  Idaho. 

After  reviewing  the  advantages  and  disadvantages 
of  the  several  countries  through  which  we  passed, 
we  give  the  preference  to  Oregon  over  any  of  them. 
Our  climate,  scenery,  water,  agricultural  and  mineral 
resources,  and  our  commercial  prospects,  place  Ore- 
eon  far  in  advance  of  her  sister  Territories  and  States. 

From  the  best  information  we  could  gather,  the 
conclusion  is  reluctantly  reached  that  large  numbers 
of  the  present  year's  emigration  are  Copperheads  and 
Rebel  sympathizers. 

I  shall  be  three  days  behind  time  in  reaching  the 
General  Conference;  but  not  through  any  fault  or 
mismanagement  of  mine.  I  started  early  enough  to 
have  reached  Philadelphia  in  season,  had  not  buffet- 
ing winds  and  waves,  and  the  mis-arrangements  of 
those  whose  actions  I  could  not  control,  prevented. 
A  letter  may  next  be  expected  from  Philadelphia. 

The  preceding  letters,  giving  account  of  my 
stage  journey  across  the  Plains,  leave  some  things 
unsaid  which  should  be  of  record.     One  of  these 


MASSACRE    OF  STAGE  PASSENGERS.  213 

is  an  account  of  peril  and  escape  and  heroism  that 
our  ordinary  life  does  not  furnish.  I  learned  of  this 
in  Oregon;  for  I  have  seen  the  lady  and  her  chil- 
dren, who  escaped  soon  after  her  awful  experience. 
Then,  also,  I  learned  it  on  the  Plains  from  the 
driver,  who,  when  I  was  present,  was  driving  on  the 
same  route  where  these  things  occurred ;  but  not  on 
this  occasion. 

A  driver,  two  male  passengers — one  of  them  the 
husband  of  a  lady  and  the  father  of  her  two  chil- 
dren— were  present  in  the  stage.  As  the  stage 
was  ascending  a  narrow  canon,  one  of  the  wheel 
horses  was  shot.  The  driver  whipped  up  his  team, 
when  he  was  shot  in  the  breast  and  his  left  arm 
broken.  He  gave  the  lines  over  to  the  passenger 
sitting  on  the  boot  with  him,  and  plied  his  horses 
with  the  whip  in  his  right  hand.  The  new  driver 
was  shot  in  the  breast,  and  fell  from  the  stage  into 
the  road,  the  wounded  driver  seizing  the  lines. 
Then  the  woman's  husband,  on  request  of  the 
driver,  crawled  out  through  the  stage  window,  and 
took  the  lines.  Soon  the  husband  was  shot,  and 
he  fell  into  the  boot.  Then  the  driver  called  on 
the  woman  to  come  out  and  drive.  The  children 
were  left  in  the  bottom  of  the  stage,  and  the  mother 
made  her  way  to  the  boot  and  took  the  reins.  The 
Indians  were  distanced.  The  stage  arrived  at  the 
station ;  but  in  what  a  plight !  The  wounded  horse 
fell  dead,  the  driver  was  dead,  her  husband  was 
dead,  and  only  she  and  her  two  children  were  liv- 
ing. The  station  was  burned.  No  one  was  about. 
Just  then  the  stage  came  up  from  the  opposite  di- 


214      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

rection.  The  woman  and  her  children  were  taken 
in.  The  stage  returned  on  the  route  it  came.  The 
mother  and  children  were  saved.  She  was  a  young 
woman,  not  over  thirty  years. 

Our  passengers  were  becoming  very  uneasy. 
We  were  in  a  section  infested  by  bad  Indians.  It 
was  in  the  vicinity  of  the  tragedy  just  recited.  The 
stage  we  should  have  met  was  ten  hours  late.  Our 
five-mule  team — two  on  the  wheel,  and  three  in  the 
lead — were  slowly  and  wearily  making  their  way 
through  heavy  sand.  We  saw  a  cloud  of  dust  a 
couple  of  miles  to  the  right  of  our  road.  The  driver 
seemed  excited  when  he  saw  it.  As  if  talking  to 
himself,  he  said :  "If  that  proves  to  be  Indians,  and 
they  come  to  us,  I  will  cramp  this  trap  and  the 
king-bolt  will  drop  out.  I  will  jump  on  the  front 
axle  and  yell  at  the  mules,  and  they  will  pull  me 
out  of  it."  "What  do  you  think  I  '11  be  doing  when 
that  happens?"  I  said.  "What  will  you  be  doing?" 
I  answered,  "I  '11  be  putting  daylight  through  you." 
The  passengers  inside  heard  the  chat,  and  they  re- 
sponded, "We  will  put  some  more  daylight  through 
him."  Fortunately,  the  alarm  was  unfounded.  We 
soon  met  the  westward  bound  stage.  Our  anxieties 
passed  away. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

I  DEVOTE  this  chapter  to  adventures  with  In- 
dians and  wild  animals.  Some  of  the  incidents 
I  personally  witnessed  and  participated  in.  The 
others  I  can  avouch  as  true.  They  will  at  least 
amuse,  and  perhaps  instruct,  some  of  my  young 
readers. 

When  I  first  went  to  Oregon  in  1851,  it  was 
sparsely  settled.  The  white  population  in  1850 
was  a  little  above  thirteen  thousand.  These  were 
widely  scattered  through  the  Wallamet  Valley, 
now  called  Willamette,  and  through  the  Umpqua 
and  Rogue  River  Valleys.  The  Donation  Land 
Law  gave  to  every  single  man  a  half-section  of 
land,  and  if  a  married  man,  a  full  section  of  land. 
This  induced  a  scattered  population. 

Oregon  abounded  with  game  and  with  wild 
animals.  In  traveling  over  the  country  I  frequently 
came  upon  bands  of  deer  who  were  comparatively 
fearless,  and  who  would  remain  grazing  even  after 
they  had  seen  me.  I  once  encountered  a  cougar, 
called  also  the  ounce  and  the  American  lion.  It 
was  only  two  miles  from  Salem,  the  capital  of  the 
Territory.  He  was  crossing  a  trail  or  cow-path, 
on  which  I  was  ascending  a  gentle  acclivity.  It 
was  in  an  oak  opening,  covered  with  grass.  He 
was  not  more  than  two  or  three  rods  above  me 
when  he  crossed  my  path.  After  proceeding  a  few 
yards  he   stopped.      I   had   never  seen   a   cougar 

215 


2l6      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

before,  and  I  did  not  know  what  animal  he  was.  I 
advanced  upon  him,  and  swung  my  lariat  as  if  about 
to  noose  him.  He  refused  to  move.  His  head  was 
down  to  the  ground.  His  teeth  were  displayed. 
His  eyes  turned  green,  and  glared  intensely.  He 
spit,  growled,  and  whisked  his  tail  furiously,  as 
though  intending  to  spring  upon  me.  Fixing  my 
eye  sharply  on  him,  I  turned  my  horse  obliquely 
and  rode  away,  perhaps  a  half  a  quarter  of  a  mile. 
Then  I  stopped  and  looked  at  him.  He  was  still 
crouched  where  I  left  him,  and  vigorously  slashing 
his  tail.  He  was  apparently  about  four  or  five  feet 
long,  and  of  a  brindle-brown  color.  He  looked 
like  a  giant  cat.  My  feelings  in  that  encounter  with 
the  cougar  can  be  better  imagined  than  described. 
I  sweat  profusely,  and  my  hair  seemed  as  stiff  as  a 
quill.  I  presume  I  turned  pale ;  for  I  was  very  much 
excited,  and  probably  not  a  little  bit  afraid. 

I  was  stopping  with  a  friend.  He  came  in  one 
morning,  and  said  he  had  lost  a  fine,  large,  three- 
months'  old  colt  by  a  cougar.  The  animal  had 
seized  the  colt  by  the  withers,  carried  it  bodily 
across  a  meadow,  jumped  a  high  rail-fence  with  the 
colt  in  his  jaws,  and  cached  it  in  a  hollow  place  in 
the   woods,    covering   it    over   with    leaves.      Mr. 

W and  I  found  the  dead  colt.     He  cut  off  a 

hind-quarter,  put  some  strychnine  into  it,  and  hung 
it  to  the  limb  of  a  tree  about  two  or  three  rods  away 
from  the  cache.  The  cougar,  in  returning  from  a 
cache,  makes  a  wide  circle,  and  then  reduces  it  in 
his  encircling  rounds  until  within  jumping  distance, 
and  then  he  jumps  upon  his  dead  prey.     This  he 


A    GRIZZLY'S   TRACKS — MUCH   TERRIFIED.      2  I J 

did  in  the  present  instance,  and  so  encountered  the 
bait,  which  he  seized  and  devoured.  We  found 
him  the  next  morning,  dead.  He  was  eight  feet  six 
inches  long  from  his  nose  to  the  tip  of  his  tail.  We 
secured  the  hide,  which,  in  some  measure,  com- 
pensated for  the  loss  of  the  colt.  It  is  not  strange 
that  brave  men  will  dread,  and  if  possible  avoid,  a 
passage  at  arms  with  one  of  these  huge  monsters. 
A  great  fright  came  to  me  from  simply  seeing 
the  fresh  tracks  of  a  grizzly  bear.  I  was  riding  in 
the  Upper  Willamette  Valley.  I  lay  off  at  noon 
to  stop  at  a  friend's  house  and  spend  the  afternoon 
and  night  with  him.  He  proposed  a  deer-hunt. 
We  went  down  into  a  large  island  in  the  Willamette 
River,  each  bearing  a  rifle.  On  the  sandy  shore  of 
the  island  I  saw  the  fresh  tracks  of  a  grizzly.  They 
were  large;  say,  fifteen  inches  long  and  seven  or 
eight  inches  wide.  The  bear  had  been  clawing  in 
the  sand  for  a  mouse-nest  or  a  mole's-nest.  His 
claws  made  tracks  as  large  as  my  fingers.  The  trees 
were  large,  and  the  undergrowth  was  dense.  The 
size  of  the  trees  made  climbing  to  escape  from 
grizzlies  impossible.  The  undergrowth  afforded 
concealment  for  the  bears,  and  rendered  surprises 
easy.  I  was  terrified,  and  immediately  told  my 
friend  I  would  not  hunt  deer  in  that  island.  My 
friend  insisted  on  a  further  hunt.  We  soon  entered 
an  open.  I  saw  a  small  herd  of  deer.  Taking  aim 
for  them,  my  rifle  shook.  My  companion  said: 
"Do  n't  shoot ;  your  piece  is  unsteady,  and  you  will 
miss/'  He  shot  one  of  the  deer,  and  we  returned 
with  our  game.     The  fear  was  occasioned  by  my 


2l8      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

knowledge  of  the  habits  of  the  grizzly,  and  of  the 
helplessness  of  man  in  an  encounter  with  the  wild 
beast. 

John  Rexford  and  his  two  manly  sons  were 
noted  grizzly  bear  hunters.  On  one  occasion 
John's  brother  William,  a  Baptist  minister,  and 
therefore  not  much  of  a  hunter,  was  visiting  at 
John's.  All  were  at  dinner,  when  they  heard  the 
hounds  baying  the  game.  Looking  out,  they  saw 
the  dogs  chasing  a  she-grizzly  with  her  cubs.  The 
bear  and  cubs,  with  dogs  in  pursuit,  were  making 
for  the  Calapooya  River,  perhaps  for  the  better 
chance  it  would  give  the  bear  and  her  cubs  to  es- 
cape. Each  of  the  four  Rexfords  seized  a  rifle,  and 
joined  in  the  chase.  Reaching  the  river  bottom, 
they  saw  Mrs.  Bruin  sitting  on  her  haunches  in  a 
thicket  of  vine  maples,  with  her  cubs  behind  her. 
She  was  held  in  this  position  by  the  active  dogs. 
On  the  way  from  the  house,  William  had  requested 
of  his  brother  John  that  he  might  have  the  first 
shot,  as  he  had  never  killed  a  grizzly.  His  brother 
had  consented,  and  he  said  to  William,  "Blaze 
away,  Bill ;  that  is  a  fine  mark."  William  raised  his 
gun  to  take  aim.  The  moment  he  did  so,  Bruin, 
with  open  mouth,  moved  towards  him,  coming  so 
near  him  that  she  had  nearly  reached  the  muzzle 
of  his  gun.  Instead  of  shooting,  William  was  petri- 
fied with  fear.  He  bawled  out  a  strange,  unearthly 
yell,  and  fell  to  the  ground,  fainting  dead  away. 
The  bear,  seeing  the  man  fall  and  hearing  his  out- 
cry, left  him  and  went  back  to  her  position  as  be- 
fore.   John  put  a  bullet  in  the  bear's  heart,  and  she 


GRIZZLY  BEAR   ADl'ENTURE. 


219 


died  in  a  few  moments.  William  had  now  recov- 
ered from  his  swoon,  and,  seeing  the  bear  dead,  he 
said,  "I  killed  him,  did  I  not?"  "I  shot  him,"  said 
John.  "No,"  said  William,  "it  was  I."  "Look  at 
your  rifle,"  said  John.  The  hammer  of  the  trigger 
had  not  been  pulled. 

In  the  early  days  of  Oregon  grizzly  bears 
abounded.  They  grew  to  an  immense  size  and 
weight.  Some  of  them  weighed  a  thousand  pounds 
or  more.  They  had  enormous  strength.  They 
could  travel  very  fast,  outstripping  the  fleetest  hu- 
man runners.  They  never  hesitated  to  attack  a 
man,  and  especially  if  surprised  or  cornered.  They 
fought  with  amazing  fierceness  and  destructiveness. 
They  have  great  tenacity  of  life.  It  is  said  they  will 
live  on  and  fight  even  after  their  heart  has  been 
pierced  with  a  bullet. 

A  man,  in  passing  through  a  thicket  where  he 
had  to  stoop  in  going  through,  fell  over  a  log  upon 
the  prostrate  body  of  a  sleeping  grizzly.  As  though 
he  would  compel  respect  for  his  gigantic  strength 
and  resent  his  rude  awakening,  Bruin  at  once  ad- 
dressed himself  to  the  work  of  doing  up  that  un- 
fortunate visitor,  and  divesting  him  of  his  clothing 
and  flesh.  With  his  mighty  claws  he  tore  off  his 
clothes.  With  his  grim,  steel-trap  jaws,  he  chewed 
up  his  cheeks  and  limbs,  gnawing  the  quivering 
flesh  from  the  bones.  He  ripped  off  the  skin  and 
flesh  from  the  man's  arms  and  limbs  and  body, 
and  left  it  hanging  in  shreds.  And  as  if  to  make 
his  work  more  complete  and  deadly,  he  hugged  his 
victim  with  a  strong,  warm  embrace,  and  squeezed 


220      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

the  breath  from  the  body,  and  then  cuffed  and 
slapped  his  helpless  adversary.  When  the  bear's 
work  with  that  man  was  over,  he  needed  recon- 
struction. It  seems  strange  to  say,  and  yet  the 
truth  requires  that  it  be  said,  that  man,  so  lacerated 
and  chewed  up,  and  so  incontinently  torn  up  and 
wounded  and  mangled  and  bleeding,  actually  re- 
covered from  his  injuries,  although  there  was  hardly 
a  spot  about  him  or  on  him  as  large  as  one's  hand 
which  was  not  torn  or  bruised. 

I  will  give  an  account  of  a  fatal  encounter  a 
famous  hunter  had  with  grizzlies.  A  great  wolf- 
hunter  in  Southern  Oregon  made  his  living  and 
supported  his  large  family  by  hunting  wolves,  and 
obtaining  the  bounties  which  the  State  gave  for 
wolves'  scalps.  He  and  his  hounds  never  failed  to 
attack  any  wild  beast  which  came  in  their  way,  no 
matter  how  ferocious  or  dangerous  such  animal 
might  be.  One  day  his  hounds  stalled  a  he-grizzly 
with  his  two  she-bears  in  company.  The  hunter 
shot  the  he-grizzly,  breaking  one  of  his  hind  legs. 
The  bear  made  for  him.  The  brave  man  held  his 
rifle  in  his  teeth,  and  climbed  a  small  tree ;  but  not 
until  the  grizzly  had  torn  off  one  of  his  boots,  and 
laid  open  the  calf  of  his  leg  to  the  bone.  The 
hunter  dropped  his  rifle;  but  made  his  escape  into 
the  tree.  The  bear  went  off  a  short  distance,  and 
watched  him.  He  set  the  dogs  on  the  bear.  While 
the  dogs  were  baying  the  bear,  the  hunter  slipped 
down  the  tree  and  began  reloading  his  rifle,  which 
he  had  recovered.  The  bear  saw  him  within  reach, 
and  made  for  him.    They  fought.    The  hunter  was 


A  DUEL  TO  THE  DEATH— INDIAN  WAR.         221 

clubbing  his  bearship  with  his  rifle.  The  bear 
knocked  his  rifle  out  of  the  hunter's  hands  and 
reach,  and  embraced  him.  The  hunter  drew  a 
hunting-knife  from  his  belt,  and  began  stabbing 
the  bear.  The  bear  knocked  the  knife  from  his 
hand.  The  hunter  reached  around  for  a  second 
knife  he  carried,  which  was  in  a  socket  on  his  boot- 
leg. He  used  this  weapon  vigorously,  driving  it 
into  the  bear's  body.  The  bear  tore  out  one  of  the 
hunter's  eyes,  and  laid  open  his  breast.  The  hunter 
continued  his  work  with  the  knife  until  the  savage 
monster  fell  over  in  death.  The  hunter  made  his 
way  to  a  cabin  near  by,  called  for  a  drink  of  water, 
and  died.  The  combat  was  fatal  to  both  con- 
tenders. 

If  the  Indians  were  savage  and  bloodthirsty  in 
their  mode  of  warfare,  they  have  had  dreadful 
provocation.  I  saw  a  white  man,  who  was  sober, 
jump  on  a  drunken  Indian,  and  so  injure  him  that 
he  died  in  two  days  afterward. 

Peo-Peo-mox-a-mox,  or  Yellow  Serpent,  a  chief 
of  the  Walla  Walla  Indians,  had  an  only  son,  who 
went  on  a  mining  expedition  for  gold  to  California. 
He  was  shot  down  in  cold  blood.  The  old  chief 
never  forgave  that  offense.  He  was  a  bitter  fighter. 
He  was  captured,  and  put  under  guard.  It  is  al- 
leged he  was  trying  to  escape.  He  was  shot  and 
killed.  Hence  when  the  war  broke  out,  some  of 
the  whites  who  fell  earliest  in  the  war  where  hor- 
ribly mutilated. 

A  stretch  of  country  in  Southern  Oregon,  in- 
cluded in  Rogue  River  and  Umpqua  Valleys,  and 


222      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   IVOR  A'. 

extending  for  thirty  miles,  thinly  settled,  was  raided 
by  the  Indians.  Some  of  the  settlers  had  gone  into 
a  stockade  fort  for  greater  safety.  Others,  who  had 
not  found  such  a  shelter  were  killed.  A  man  named 
Harris,  and  living  two  miles  from  the  nearest  neigh- 
bor's, was  assailed  in  his  cabin  by  a  band  of  In- 
dians. It  was  near  night.  The  family  consisted  of 
a  man,  his  wife,  and  a  daughter  of  ten  years.  The 
Indians  fired  upon  the  house.  Mr.  Harris,  who  had 
two  rifles  and  a  good  supply  of  ammunition,  re- 
turned the  fire.  When  he  was  firing  one  of  these 
guns,  his  wife  was  reloading  the  other.  He  fired  on 
his  savage  enemies  through  the  space  between  the 
logs  of  his  cabin.  At  length  he  received  a  fatal 
wound,  and  very  soon  expired.  He  told  his  wife 
to  keep  on  firing  until  the  ammunition  was  all 
spent,  or  nearly  so,  and  then  to  shoot  her  daughter 
and  herself,  for  it  was  worse  than  death  to  be  cap- 
tured by  the  Indians.  Mrs.  Harris  took  his  place, 
the  daughter  reloading  her  pieces  as  fast  as  neces- 
sary. This  action  was  kept  up  for  some  time,  and 
she  found  her  ammunition  was  nearly  gone. 

Thus  it  continued  until  the  twilight  deepened 
into  night.  Then  a  small  body  of  white  horsemen 
came  riding  rapidly  by.  The  Indians  retired. 
When  the  firing  ceased,  she  and  her  daughter  fled 
into  the  adjoining  forest.  The  Indians  returned 
to  their  assault.  Their  shots  remained  unanswered. 
They  fired  the  house,  and  in  the  light  of  the  burn- 
ing cabin  they  scoured  the  surrounding  woods, 
several  times  approaching  very  closely  the  con- 
cealed fugitives.     When  the  Indians  retired,   they 


INDIAN  ATROCITIES — THE  MODOC  WAR.       12$ 

spent  the  night  in  their  hiding.  The  next  day  they 
were  rescued  by  a  party  of  white  settlers.  Mrs. 
1 1  arris  received  from  Congress  a  medal  and  the  gift 
of  a  mile  square  of  land  for  her  heroism. 

In  a  later  Indian  war  the  Indians  occupied  a 
very  strong  retreat  among  the  lava-beds  of  an 
ancient  volcano.  The  troops  could  get  into  the 
vicinity  of  their  Indian  foes,  but  they  could  not  find 
their  places  of  concealment.  At  length  Captain 
Jack  proposed  a  treaty  at  a  point  agreed  upon. 
General  Canby,  of  the  regular  army ;  Mr.  Dyer,  of 
the  Indian  service ;  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas,  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  perhaps  others,  repaired  to  the  place.  The 
Indians  slaughtered  them  in  cold  blood,  except  Mr. 
Dyer  and  one  or  two  others,  who  escaped.  The 
chief  leader  in  this  horrible  massacre  was  brought 
up  among  the  whites.    1  knew  him  well. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

IT  is  not  generally  known  that  Oregon  was  in 
some  danger  of  becoming  a  slave  State.  A  large 
majority  of  the  earlier  emigrants  to  Oregon  came 
from  slave  States,  chiefly  from  Missouri,  Arkansas, 
Texas,  Tennessee,  and  Kentucky.  There  was  a 
strong  determination  on  the  part  of  the  Southern 
politicians,  who  were  eager  to  extend  the  area  of 
slavery  in  the  United  States,  to  induce  Oregon, 
when  she  should  assume  Statehood,  to  become  a 
slave  State. 

When  General  Joseph  Lane,  the  delegate  in 
Congress  from  Oregon  Territory,  ran  in  1856  for 
re-election,  he  could  count  on  a  Democratic  ma- 
jority in  Oregon  of  five  thousand.  In  canvassing 
for  his  re-election,  he  sought  to  persuade  his  Demo- 
cratic supporters  to  vote  also  for  slavery  in  Oregon. 
In  his  former  election  I  voted  for  him,  because 
under  the  conditions  I  believed  he  could  help  Ore- 
gon more  than  his  opponent  could.  During  his 
canvass  for  re-election,  he  again  solicited  my  vote. 
I  told  him  I  had  heard  that,  in  canvassing  for  his 
re-election,  he  spoke  one  word  for  his  re-election 
and  two  in  favor  of  Oregon's  becoming  a  slave 
State.  If  that  rumor  was  true,  I  said,  I  would  not 
only  not  vote  for  him,  but  I  would  also  do  all  I 
could  against  his  re-election  to  Congress.  I  took 
the  field  in  favor  of  Oregon  as  a  free  State.     Gen- 

224 


A  Gl  TA 1  ION —  CONTENTION.  225 

eral  Lane's  majority  was  cut  down  from  five  thou- 
sand to  three  thousand.  The  slave  State  schedule 
was  defeated  by  over  three  thousand. 

I  made  the  Pacific  Christian  Advocate  an  earnest 
supporter  of  Oregon  as  a  free  State,  and  I  also  can- 
vassed in  the  Willamette  Valley  in  favor  of  free 
Oregon.  As  may  well  be  supposed,  I  encountered 
opposition,  and  my  course  as  an  editor  subjected 
me  to  the  misrepresentations  and  abuse  of  the  ad- 
vocates of  the  slaveocracy.  I  was  a  target  for  the 
shafts  of  ridicule  and  falsehood  by  some  of  the 
Democratic  papers  in  Oregon  and  California.  The 
following  article,  which  was  printed  in  the  Pacific 
Christian  Advocate  in  the  fall  of  1859,  will  show  the 
kind  of  conflict  through  which  I  passed,  and 
through  which  I  carried  my  paper.  It  appeared 
during  the  pendency  of  the  slave  State  question  in 
Oregon : 

THE  PROOF. 

"In  Favor  of  Slavery. — The  Standard,  of  the  19th  inst, 
contains  a  long  letter  of  Joseph  C.  Lovejoy  in  favor  of 
slavery.  It  is  addressed  to  his  brother,  a  member  of  Con- 
gress; and  while  it  is  written  with  evident  ability,  it  goes 
the  whole  figure  for  slavery." 

The  above  extract  we  transcribe  from  the  last  issue  of 
the  Advocate.  The  man  who  wrote  the  same,  if  it  may  be 
taken  as  his  real  opinion  given  after  reading  the  article, 
should  be  classed  with  that  other  Solomon  in  ordinary  to 
some  Siwash  tribe,  who,  in  the  plenitude  of  his  wisdom,  ex- 
claimed. "O.  how  good  was  Nature  that  placed  great  rivers 
near  great  towns!" 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  intended  to  mislead,  then  while 
such  writing  is  admitted  to  its  columns,  the  Advocate  should 
drop  the  prefix  Christian,  and  substitute  the  word  Heathen. 

We  thus  speak,  because  on  the  14th  inst.,  four  days 
15 


226     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

previous  to  its  publication  in  the  Standard,  the  letter  re- 
ferred to  was  published  in  this  paper,  and  now,  for  the  ben- 
efit of  the  author  of  the  lying  paragraph  which  is  quoted 
above,  we  will  continue  to  quote  from  the  Fool's  Experience: 

"Page:  He  that 's  first  a  hypocrite,  and  next  a  knave,  the 
year  after  is  either  an  arrant  fool  or  a  madman. 

"Master:  How   came  your  knavery   by   such   experience? 

"Page:  As  fools  do  by  news;  somebody  told  me  so,  and  I 
believed  it." 

The  above  is  from  the  Times  of  the  28th  ult. 
We  do  not  attempt  a  reply  because  the  paragraph  or 
its  author  deserves  it,  but  simply  for  the  sake  of  the 
cause  to  which  we  are  devoted,  and  for  the  vindi- 
cation of  our  veracity,  so  needlessly  and  ungentle- 
manly  called  in  question.  We  said  that  Lovejoy's 
letter  is  in  favor  of  slavery.  Readers  will  please  read 
extracts  from  said  letter  given  below,  and  we  are 
content  that  they  shall  determine  upon  the  question 
whether  our  statement  is  a  "lying  paragraph"  or  not. 
Mr.  Lovejoy,  among  other  things,  says  as  follows 
(the  italicizing  is  ours) : 

But  my  convictions  at  the  present  time  are,  not  only 
that  the  slaveholders  have  a  complete  vindication  of  their 
present  position;  but  they  are  entitled  to  be  looked  upon  as 
benefactors  to  the  country  and  to  the  human  race.     .     .     . 

The  South  are  impregnable.  The  Constitution  pro- 
tects them,  the  Bible  protects  them,  and  the  experience  of  man- 
kind protects  them.     .     .     . 

It  can  not  be  denied  that  the  idea  of  slavery  runs  through 
all  the  Bible;  it  was  stamped  upon  the  entire  history  of  the 
Jewish  nation,  and  upon  the  history  of  every  vigorous  na- 
tion upon  the  face  of  the  earth;  indeed,  I  strongly  suspect 
this  is  the  normal  condition  of  large  portions  of  a  depraved 
race,  and  I  can  readily  believe  that  a  man  may  sustain  the 
relation  of  slaveholder,  in  all  good  conscience,  and  with 
the  entire  Divine  approbation.     .     .     . 

American  slavery  has  produced  and  cultivated  more 
African  intellect,  more  social  affection,  more  Christian  emo- 
tion   in    two    hundred    years,    than    all    Africa    (Central    or 


SHOWING    UP  FALLACY.  227 

•  Southern)  for  two  thousand  years.  American  slavery  is  a 
redemption,  a  deliverance  from  African  heathenism. 

The  best  thing  that  could  be  done  for  Africa,  if  they 
could  live  there,  would  be  to  send  them  a  hundred  thou- 
sand American  slaveholders,  to  work  them  up  to  some  de- 
gree of  civilization.     ... 

So  far  as  Africa  is  concerned,  the  slave-trade  was,  and 
is,  humane  in  its  operations;  its  abolition  was  the  result  of 
sentiment,  and  not  the  determination  of  calm,  deliberate 
statesmanship.     .     .     . 

If  more  laborers  are  needed  for  Texas,  Central  America, 
parts  of  Mexico,  and  Cuba,  they  ought  to  be  brought,' 
without  objections,  under  such  humane  regulations  as  are 
made  in  other  cases  for  the  comfort  of  passengers. 

As  to  the  influence  of  slavery  on  the  character  of  the 
whites,  that  is  quite  another  question;  but  so  far  as  the 
political  history  of  our  country  is  concerned,  it  is  not  easy 
to  see  how  we  could  do  without  slaveholders. 

If  the  author  of  these  extracts  is  not  in  favor 
of  slavery,  then  he  is  an  arrant  hypocrite;  and  if 
the  extracts  do  not  sustain  our  position,  then  we 
confess  we  can  not  understand  language.  What  con- 
nection the  previous  publication  of  Mr.  Lovejoy's  let- 
ter in  the  Times  has  with  the  conclusions  of  its  new 
editor,  or  how  that  should  induce  him  to  "thus  speak," 
it  is  difficult  to  conceive.  The  time  is  approaching 
in  Oregon,  if  it  has  not  already  come,  when  men 
in  public  stations  must  evince  self-respect  and  gentle- 
manly bearing  towards  others  if  they  would  be  re- 
spected themselves.  The  predecessor  of  the  present 
editor  of  the  Times  commenced  a  similar  tirade  against 
certain  respectable  citizens  in  Oregon.  He  commenced, 
too,  by  quoting  Shakespeare.  He  soon  ran  his  inglo- 
rious race  and  left  the  country,  fallen  beneath  the 
contempt  of  respectable  men.  We  forewarn  the  pres- 
ent editor  that  an  equally  ignoble  but  speedier  fate 
.'i waits  him,  unless  he  profits  by  the  example  just 
cited. 


228      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

It  was  the  expectation  of  the  Secessionists  in 
the  Southern  States,  that  Oregon  and  California 
would  secede  when  the  Southern  States  drew  off 
from  the  Union,  and  organized  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy. Political  emissaries  from  California,  who 
were  ministers  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South,  and  who  had  organized  that  Church  in  Cali- 
fornia, came  to  Oregon,  and  made  political  speeches 
in  favor  of  the  Breckinridge  and  Lane  ticket,  de- 
nouncing the  Black  Republicans  as  disunionists, 
and  predicting  that  if  Oregon  went  Republican, 
and  if  Lincoln  should  be  elected/the  country  would 
be  involved  in  civil  war,  and  blood  would  run  in 
consequence  up  to  the  horses'  bridles.  The  iri- 
descent dream  of  the  Southern  fire-eaters  and  Se- 
cessionists, that  the  Pacific  States  would  join  the 
Southern  Confederacy,  had  some  little  shadow  of 
probability  in  their  knowledge  that  a  large  majority 
of  the  emigrants  to  California  and  Oregon  were 
from  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Alabama,  Texas,  and 
Missouri.  The  following  editorial  was  leveled 
against  the  untruths  of  these  secession  agitators 
in  the  issue  of  June  20,  1863: 

MISREPRESENTATION. 

While  on  a  recent  trip  to  Jackson  County,  we 
learned  that  the  emissaries  of  the  Church  South  are 
earnestly  and  persistently  representing  that  the  Meth- 
odist EpiscopaJ  Church  is  the  seceding  Church,  and 
that  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  is  the 
old  organization.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Rev. 
O.  Fisher,  when  he  was  in  the  country  two  or  three 
years  since,   represented  the  same  things,  which  we 


DEB  A  TES  ON  SLA  VER  Y— BISHOP  ANDRE  IV.     2  29 

then  denied,  and  we  did  not  suppose  it  would  be  re- 
peated, or,  if  repeated,  believed;  yet  the  old  adage, 
"a  lie  well  stuck  to  is  better  than  the  truth,"  seems 
to  find  support  in  this  instance ;  for  we  found  persons 
recently  who  actually  professed  to  believe  that  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  is  the  seceding  body,  and 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  the  original 
one,  holding  the  old  organization  and  rights.  We 
propose  to  recite  a  little  of  the  history  of  the  Great 
Secession  of  1844-1845,  for  the  correctness  of  which 
we  would  vouch,  and  appeal,  for  those  who  desire  the 
proof,  to  Elliott's  "Great  Secession,"  and  "The  Meth- 
odist Church  Property  Case,"  a  stout,  octavo  pam- 
phlet published  by  the  Methodist  Book  Concern  in 
New  York,  in  185 1.  In  the  General  Conference  of 
1844,  two  cases  came  up  for  adjudication,  viz. :  First, 
the  appeal  of  F.  A.  Harding  against  the  action  of 
the  Baltimore  Conference.  The  Baltimore  Confer- 
ence had  suspended  him  from  the  ministry  for  refus- 
ing to  manumit  certain  slaves  which  came  into  his 
possession  by  marriage.  From  this  action  Mr.  Hard- 
ing appealed.  (See  Methodist  Church  Property  Case, 
pages  57,  58,  59.)  After  full  discussion,  during  four 
days,  a  motion  was  made  by  John  Early,  of  Virginia, 
afterwards  a  bishop  of  the  Church  South,  to  reverse 
the  decision  of  the  Baltimore  Conference.  The  vote 
stood  as  follows:  Nays,  117;  yeas,  56.  The  chair 
decided  that  this  vote  virtually  affirmed  the  action  of 
the  Baltimore  Conference.  W.  Capers  took  an  appeal 
from  his  decision.  The  decision  of  the  chair  was  sus- 
tained by  in  for,  and  53  against. 

The  other  exciting  case  which  came  up  for  action 
in  the  General  Conference  of  1844,  was  that  of  Rev. 
Bishop  Andrew.  Bishop  Andrew  was  elected  a  bishop 
when  a  non-slaveholder.  Some  years  afterwards,  by 
bequests  and  by  marriage,  he  became  possessed  of 


230      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

slaves,  and  this  fact  coming  officially  before  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  of  1844,  the  subject  was  discussed 
variously  for  some  two  weeks,  when  the  following  pre- 
amble and  resolutions  were  adopted  by  a  vote  of  no 
yeas  and  68  nays,  viz. : 

Whereas,  The  Discipline  ot  our  Church  forbids  the 
doing  anything  calculated  to  destroy  our  itinerant  general 
superintendency ;  and 

Whereas,  Bishop  Andrew  has  become  connected  with 
slavery,  by  marriage  and  otherwise,  and  this  act  having 
drawn  after  it  circumstances  which,  in  the  estimation  of  the 
General  Conference,  will  greatly  embarrass  the  exercise  of 
his  office  as  an  itinerant  general  superintendent,  if  not  in 
some  places  entirely  prevent  it;  therefore, 

Resolved,  That  it  is  the  sense  of  this  General  Conference 
that  he  desist  from  the  exercise  of  his  office  so  long  as  this 
impediment  remains. 

Various  resolutions,  declaratory  and  otherwise, 
and  a  protest,  were  offered,  and,  finally,  a  committee 
of  nine  was  appointed  on  a  Plan  of  Separation.  They 
reported  a  plan,  the  very  first  condition  of  which  was, 
"That  should  the  Annual  Conferences  in  the  slave- 
holding  States  find  it  necessary  to  unite  in  a  distinct 
ecclesiastical  connection,  the  following  rule  shall  be 
observed  with  regard  to  the  northern  boundary  of 
said  connection ;"  i.  c,  a  majority  vote  of  the  mem- 
bers of  said  societies,  stations,  and  Conferences  should 
govern  in  deciding  their  relation,  whether  to  the  new 
organization  proposed,  or  to  the  old  one.  Provision 
was  also  made  to  submit  the  Sixth  Restrictive  Rule  to 
a  vote  of  all  the  Conferences,  as  to  whether  they 
would  sanction  a  division  of  the  funds  of  the  Church 
should  the  Southern  Conferences  separate  from  the 
Church.  This  last  failed  to  receive  the  necessary 
majority  to  authorize  the  division  of  property.  The 
delegates  from  the  South  held  a  meeting  in  the  city 


ACTION  OF   THE  SOUTHERN  DELEGATES.      23 1 

of  New  Yoik  on  the  next  day  after  the  adjournment 
of  the  General  Conference,  and  called  a  Convention 
in  Louisville,  Ky.,  for  May  1,  1845,  tnus  forestalling 
the  action  of  the  Conferences  as  provided  for  by  the 
General  Conference.  The  Convention  met,  having 
delegates  from  sixteen  of  the  Conferences  in  slave- 
holding  territory,  and,  by  a  vote  of  ninety-four  yeas 
to  three  nays,  erected  the  Annual  Conferences  repre- 
sented in  the  Convention,  "into  a  distinct  ecclesi- 
astical connection,  separate  from  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  as  at  present  constituted,"  adopting  "the  doc- 
trines and  rules  and  regulations  of  said  Discipline, 
except  only  so  far  as  verbal  alteration  may  be  neces- 
sary to  a  distinct  organization,"  and  "to  be  known 
by  the  style  and  title  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South."  The  whole  proceedings  of  the 
South  to  obtain  what  they  claimed  was  their  share  of 
the  funds  of  the  Church  were  upon  the  idea  that  the 
Church  from  which  they  had  separated  was  the  orig- 
inal, old  organization,  taking  date  in  1784. 

If  persons  are  ignorant  or  wicked  enough  to  teach 
the  contrary  in  Oregon,  in  the  year  of  grace  1863, 
and  there  are  those  here  who  are  weak  enough  to 
believe  such  perversions,  without  informing  them- 
selves, we  sincerely  pity  them,  assuring  them  that  the 
means  are  within  reach,  fully  to  set  them  right  in  the 
premises. 

"HOWLING  DERVISHES." 

One  of  our  Oregon  contemporaries,  who  is  "down 
on  the  war,"  alluding  to  the  Copperhead  report  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  New  York  Conference,  denounces 
the  preachers  of  that  Conference  severely  for  their 
political  proclivities,  and  calls  them  "howling  der- 
vishes."   He  says  there  are  some  in  Oregon  who  re- 


232      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

semble  those  New  York  preachers.  If  to  stand  up 
for  one's  country 

"through  storm  and  night," 

and  in  every  practicable  way  to  defend  the  fair  fame 
and  the  just  rights  of  the  inheritance  bequeathed  by 
our  fathers,  subjects  them  to  the  epithets  of  such  men 
and  such  sheets,  probably  the  Oregon  preachers  al- 
luded to  will  bear  the  odium  thus  cast  upon  them  with 
meekness,  but  without  abating  a  jot  of  their  efforts 
for  the  good  cause. 

The  following  is  in  the  same  line  as  the  fore- 
going. The  writer  was  a  transfer  from  the  Balti- 
more Conference.  It  will  indicate  the  animus  of 
those  who  opposed  the  war  for  the  Union : 

Mr.  Editor, — As  the  writer's  name  appears  under  the 
report  "On  the  State  of  the  Country,"  passed  at  the  late 
session  of  the  Oregon  Annual  Conference,  and  may,  without 
qualification,  create  a  wrong  impression  upon  the  minds  of 
his  friends,  it  is  deemed  proper  to  beg  the  indulgence  of  your 
readers  to  say  that  he  voted  against  the  fourth  resolution 
of  that  report  as  it  now  stands,  because  he  thought  its  adop- 
tion might  possibly  embarrass  true  Union-loving  ministers 
beyond  the  bounds  of  the  said  Conference.  Second,  because, 
as  it  appeared  to  him,  one  Conference  has  no  right  to 
indicate  the  line  of  conduct  for  their  equals  of  another  Con- 
ference. This  last  objection  is  based  upon  the  opinion  that 
the  term  "ministers,"  as  used  in  the  resolution  and  con- 
nection, embraces  ministers  generally.  For  these  reasons 
an  amendment  was  moved  so  as  to  make  the  resolution 
applicable  to  the  ministers  of  the  Oregon  Conference  only, 
leaving  those  of  other  Conferences  and  Churches  to  act  on 
the  subject,  without  advice,  according  to  their  own  sense 
of  duty,  which  the  Oregon  Conference  claim  the  right  ot 
doing  for  themselves.  Had  more  time  for  the  examination  of 
the  sixth  resolution  been  allowed,  he  would  have  voted 
against  that  also,  unless  the  language  of  it  had  been  so  un- 


CONFERENCE   RESOLUTIONS.  233 

derstood  as  hyperbolically  expressing  the  sentiment  that  the 
Union  is  worth  maintaining  at  a  great  sacrifice. 

Respectfully,         GEORGE  M.  BERRY. 
August  28,  1861. 

We  regret  that  Brother  Berry  has  deemed  it  neces- 
sary to  bring  this  subject,  in  this  form,  before  the 
public,  lest  the  impression  should  be  unfavorable  to 
him ;  and  also,  lest  it  should  be  inferred  that  the  Con- 
ference was  not  generally  agreed  in  its  action.  To 
prevent  misapprehension,  we  subjoin  a  brief  state- 
ment of  facts :  As  a  member  of  the  committee, 
Brother  Berry  agreed  to  the  report  before  it  was 
submitted.  In  the  discussion  before  the  Conference, 
Brother  Berry  opposed  the  fourth  resolution,  and  he 
and  one  other  voted  against  it.  On  the  adoption 
of  the  report  as  a  whole,  the  yeas  and  nays  being 
called,  the  vote  was  unanimous,  Brother  Berry's  name 
being  recorded  with  the  others  in  its  favor.  The  Con- 
ference acted  deliberately,  the  report  occupying  a 
considerable  portion  of  two  days.  Brother  Berry, 
in  common  with  the  other  members  of  the  Confer- 
ence, had  full  opportunity  to  discuss  the  resolution, 
and  his  privilege  was  freely  used.  The  report  will 
speak  for  itself.  .  It  is  quite  unnecessary  to  re-arguev 
the  matter  in  our  columns. 

The  following  editorial,  which  appeared  in  the 
columns  of  the  Pacific  Christian  Advocate,  May  3, 
1862,  needs  no  explanation.  It  shows  with  what 
tenacity  the  opposers  of  suppressing  the  secession 
and  rebellion  adhered  to  their  cause: 

"  SECESSION— SCHISM." 
The  April  number  of  the  Oregon  Churchman  has 
an    article    on    "Secession — Schism."      The    ground 
taken  is  that  the  separations  among  Christians  are 


234      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

really  schisms,  and  are  generally  and  properly  de- 
nominated secessions.  We  quote  two  passages  for  the 
purpose  of  comment  (italicizing  is  ours) : 

Unquestionably  the  strongest  argument  used  against  per- 
mitting a  secession  from  our  Republic  is,  that  if  allowed  in  one 
instance  it  will  probably  be  repeated  in  others,  until  a  total  dis- 
integration ensue,  and  thence  universal  anarchy.  If  this  reason- 
ing be  sound,  is  it  not  equally  applicable  to  our  ecclesiastical 
affairs?  Nay,  even  more;  for  political  separations  are  neces- 
sarily territorial,  while  the  others  are  indiscriminate.  In  the 
State  of  Oregon  alone,  for  example,  there  are  at  least  four- 
teen distinct  ecclesiastical  organizations,  entirely  independent 
of  each  other.  And  where  is  this  to  end?  for  if  the  first  se- 
cession be  justifiable,  so  is  each  successive  one  which  has 
occurred,  or  may  yet  occur. 

The  argument  stated  is  by  no  means  "the  strong- 
est used  against  permitting  a  secession  from  our  Re- 
public." A  much  stronger  one  is  that  State  secession 
is  itself  subversive  of  government  and  a  crime  be- 
fore God,  and  it  is  as  really  so  whether  one  State,  or 
many,  secede.  The  principle  is  radically  mischievous 
and  dangerous  as  well  as  wicked.  The  strongest  ar- 
gument against  murder,  or  any  other  form  of  disobe- 
dience to  law,  is  not  that  if  allowed  in  one  instance 
"it  will  probably  be  repeated  in  others,  until"  mur- 
ders and  other  felonies  are  common.  That  is  an 
argument,  but  not  the  strongest.  Wherein  is  the 
reasoning  against  State  secession  different  from  that 
against  other  forms  of  lawlessness?  State  secession 
is  not  a  question  of  policy  or  expediency ;  it  is  a  crime. 

Nor,  again,  are  "political  separations  necessarily 
territorial;"  i.  e.,  they  are  not  confined  to  the  seceded 
portion  nor  are  they  necessarily  nor  chiefly  territorial. 
State  secession  is  such  a  violation  of  law  as  would 
work  territorial  and  political  injury  to  the  portions 
seceded  from  as  well  as  the  portion  seceding,  and  it  is 


SECESSION — SCHISM.  235 

a  crime;  it  would  work  moral  injury  to  both  parties, 
and,  by  example,  to  all  nations.  This  reasoning, 
therefore,  is  not  sound  in  political  separations,  and, 
if  it  were,  it  would  not  be  sound,  nor  "equally  ap- 
plicable to  ecclesiastical  affairs,"  because  it  assumes 
that  conformity  to  one  particular  form  of  Church 
order  and  organization  is  Scripturally  enjoined,  and 
that,  therefore,  dissent  and  nonconformity  are  crim- 
inal. We  think  it  will  trouble  the  Churchman  to  es- 
tablish these  positions.  Nor  yet  does  it  necessarily 
or  logically  follow,  that  "if  the  first  secession  be  justi- 
fiable, so  is  each  successive  one  which  may  occur." 
If  "each  successive  one"  were  for  the  same  cause  or 
causes,  or  for  equally  weighty  ones  as  the  first,  the 
first  being  justifiable,  so  would  be  the  following  ones. 
That  every  Church  secession  is  for  the  same  or  equal 
reasons  as  all  others,  is  assumption.  Let  it  be  proved. 
The  second  paragraph  we  quote  is  as  follows : 

Another  very  grave  inquiry  suggested  by  this  state  of 
facts  is,  as  to  the  extent  of  its  influence  upon  our  social  and 
political  relations.  It  is  evident  that  men's  religious  edu- 
cation and  sentiments  form  the  strongest  element  in  their 
character,  and  ultimately  control  all  their  leading  principles 
of  action.  Now  all  will  admit  that  the  tendency  of  our  people 
in  ecclesiastical  matters  has  been  towards  secession,  and  that 
their  practical  training  has  been  in  that  school.  Of  all  the 
leading  Protestant  bodies  which  existed  at  the  time  of  the 
adoption  of  our  National  Constitution,  one  only  remained 
a  unit  until  the  beginning  of  our  present  troubles.  Each  of 
the  others  has,  at  different  times,  been  divided,  and  sub- 
divided by  secession.  The  same  is  substantially  true  in  Eng- 
land. And  the  exceptional  Church,  identical  in  the  two 
countries,  has  ever  protested  against  both  the  principle  and 
practice  of  separation,  as  well  in  her  doctrinal  teaching  as 
in  her  constitution. 

There  is  one  cogent  fact  which  goes  far  to  weaken 
this  reasoning :  The  portion  of  the  United  States  most 
loyal,  and  where  State  secession  is  most  abhorrent, 


236      SIXTV-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

is  by  far  more  divided  into  sects  and  separate  Church 
organizations,  and  more  afflicted  with  what  the  writer 
calls  schism,  than  the  seceded  portion.  How  is  this? 
Other  facts  may  be  cited.  One  of  the  supplications 
in  the  Litany  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church, 
and  to  which  the  congregations,  South  as  well  as 
North,  have  been  responding  for  generations,  "Good 
Lord,  deliver  us,"  is  "from  all  sedition,  privy  con- 
spiracy, and  rebellion."  Yet  that  Church,  with  all  its 
unity,  orthodoxy,  and  prayers  against  rebellion,  has 
not  prevented  its  ministers  and  members  in  the  South 
from  joining  the  rebellious  forces  arrayed  against  the 
Government,  and  one  of  them — Rev.  Bishop  Leonidas 
Polk,  of  Tennessee — is  leading  armies  against  the  loyal 
citizens  of  his  own  country.  If  schism  be  so  fruitful 
of  "political  separations"  and  rebellions,  and  adher- 
ence to  the  only  undivided,  national  Church  organ- 
ization be  so  potent  to  conserve  the  State,  as  the 
argument  implies,  what  are  we  to  think  of  this  case? 

More  of  the  navy  and  army  chaplains,  previous 
to  the  rebellion,  have  been  of  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal denomination  than  of  any,  and,  we  believe,  of 
all  others,  and  that,  too,  while  that  denomination  is 
numerically  one  of  the  least  in  the  Nation.  Yet  the  army 
and  navy  exhibited  many  sad  and  sickening  examples 
of  perjury  and  foul  treason.  If  the  Churchman s 
reasoning  were  good,  and  there  were  such  political 
benefit  to  be  derived  from  the  influence  of  a  Church 
which  has  "ever  protested  against  the  principle  and 
practice  of  separation,  as  well  in  her  doctrinal  teach- 
ing as  in  her  constitution,"  how  comes  it  to  pass 
that  some  of  the  most  flagrant  examples  of  "sedition, 
privy  conspiracy,  and  rebellion,"  have  occurred  among 
those  who  have  enjoyed  only  the  ministrations  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church? 

With  all  the  writer's  abhorrence  of  Church  seces- 


CHURCHES  NOT  SCHISMATIC.  2tf 

sion,  he  has  not  intimated — he  ought,  we  think — that 
State  secession  is  inherently  wrong,  as  well  as  of  dan- 
gerous tendency.  We  have  no  war  to  wage  against 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church.  We  were  born  a 
member  of  its  elder  sister.  We  honor  that  Church 
for  its  fidelity  to  evangelical  truth ;  for  its  strong  front 
against  infidelity ;  for  its  stability ;  and  we  glory  in  the 
good  it  has  done  and  which  it  is  doing;  but  when 
certain  of  its  "chief  ministers/'  who  maintain  a  marked 
reticence  upon  the  horrible  crime  of  rebellion  as  now 
raging,  attempt  to  asperse  those  of  other  denomina- 
tions as  schismatics,  and  impute  to  their  doctrines  and 
practice  secession  and  rebellion,  such  impertinence 
demands  rebuke.  In  administering  it,  we  would  dis- 
criminate, and  except  those  who,  like  Dr.  Tyng,  of 
New  York,  are  truly  catholic,  and  who  say,  "Grace 
be  with  all  them  that  love  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in 
sincerity." 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  following  Thanksgiving  sermon  was 
preached  by  me  in  Portland,  Oregon,  Novem- 
ber 27,  1 862,  while  the  War  for  the  Union  was  being 
prosecuted.  It  was  published  by  request.  The 
texts  were  Jeremiah  xvii,  6,  10,  inclusive,  and  the 
one  hundredth  Psalm: 

By  official  Proclamation  of  the  Executive  of  this 
State,  we  are  summoned  from  the  ordinary  pursuits 
of  life  to  devote  a  day  to  thanksgiving  and  prayer, 
to  humiliation  before  God,  and  to  devout  gratitude 
to  the  Sovereign  Arbiter  of  human  destiny,  the  Lord 
of  lords  and  King  of  kings. 

The  fact  that  all  the  loyal  States  of  the  Union, 
with  only  two  or  three  exceptions,  have  agreed  upon 
this  as  a  day  of  public  thanksgiving  that  the  morning 
sun  as  he  sheds  his  early  beams  on  the  Atlantic  slope 
continues  in  his  western  circuit,  to  call  successive 
States — from  Orient  to  Occident — to  this  delightful 
and  appropriate  exercise,  until  a  great  and  mighty 
Nation  -are  prostrate  before  Jehovah,  in  supplication 
or  adoration,  heightens  the  interest  of  the  occasion, 
and  exhibits  a  sublime  and  most  encouraging  spec- 
tacle. 

There  are  two  leading  thoughts  contained  in  the 
Proclamation  upon  which  I  would  fix  your  attention 
with  somewhat  of  detail.  Theyare  the  duties  of  humili- 
ation and  prayer  for  national  sins;  thanksgiving  and 
praise  for  national  blessings. 

It  is  atheistic  to  deny  national  accountability  and 
dependence.    Shall  we  admit  a  God  in  creation  and  in 

238 


THANKSGIVING  SERMON.  239 

all  the  mighty  framework  of  nature,  and  preclude  him 
from  cognizance  and  supervision  of  human  affairs, 
whether  personal  or  corporate?  This  is  as  irreligious 
as  it  is  unphilosophical.  The  Lord  sitteth  above  the 
iloods.  He  ruleth  in  the  heavens,  and  doeth  his  pleas- 
ure among  the  sons  of  men.  While  he  numbers  the 
hairs  of  our  heads,  and  not  a  falling  sparrow  escapes 
his  notice ;  while 

"There  's  not  a  tint  that  paints  the  rose 
Or  decks  the  lily  fair, 
Or  streaks  the  humblest  flower  that  grows, 
But  God  has  placed  it  there," 

it  is  equally  true  that  by  him  "kings  rule  and  princes 
decree  justice;"  that  "He  setteth  up  one  and  putteth 
down  another;"  that  he  holds  ruler  and  subject  alike 
accountable  for  human  conduct,  rewarding  and  pun- 
ishing, as  that  conduct  is,  or  is  not,  according  to  his. 
rule  of  right.  Let  no  man,  and  no  corporation,  no 
community,  and  no  nation  think  to  evade  this  account- 
ability. God's  government,  like  his  presence,  is  uni- 
versal. His  authority,  like  his  omniscience,  extends  to 
all  beings. 

His  moral  government  is  as  far-reaching  and  effect- 
ive as  to  moral  beings  as  his  physical  is  as  to  material 
objects.  As  well  might  a  man  think  to  escape  the  law 
of  gravitation  while  in  the  body,  or  to  respire  without 
the  vital  air,  as  to  avoid  the  moral  control  which  God 
exercises  over  men  and  nations.  These  conclusions 
are  inevitable  if  we  admit  the  existence  of  God.  Even 
if  there  were  no  light  of  revelation  to  shine  upon  the 
question,  doth  not  nature  herself  speak  with  irresistible 
conclusiveness?  Doth  not  reason  concur  with  nature 
in  proclaiming  the  sovereignty  as  well  as  the  existence 
of  God,  as  really  in  morals  as  in  physics?  Admit  God's 
existence,  and  his  control  follows,  alike  in  moral  as  in 
material,  equally  in  great  as  in  small  affairs. 


240      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

As  God  exists  the  Sovereign  Lawgiver  and  Judge, 
the  dispenser  and  enforcer  of  law,  national  as  well  as 
personal,  righteousness  or  sin  follows  as  we  observe 
or  disregard  his  law.  No  time  shall  be  lost  in  debating 
whether  that  law  is  written  in  the  Bible  or  voiced  in 
nature.  Nature  and  revelation  agree  in  this  funda- 
mental rule  of  equity  as  to  persons,  "All  things  what- 
soever ye  would  that  men  should  do  unto  you,  do  ye 
even  so  unto  them."  And  they  also  agree  in  this  fun- 
damental condition  of  national  growth  or  decay,  ele- 
vation or  depression,  progress  or  retrogression. 
"Righteousness  exalteth  a  nation — sin  is  a  reproach  to 
any  people."  "The  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of 
God."  They  are  ordained  "as  a  terror  to  evil-doers, 
and  a  praise  to  them  that  do  well." 

General  commercial  prosperity  has  attended  our  pro- 
gress through  another  year.  It  is  true  that  privateer- 
ing has  somewhat  interrupted  commerce  in  some  parts 
of  the  world,  but  this  has  not  been  general.  Our  ex- 
ports have  been  carried  in  American  ships,  and  our 
navy  has  everywhere  covered  itself  with  glory  by  its 
victorious  career  of  defense  against  the  rebellious  ports 
and  vessels  of  the  Southern  Confederacy.  The  marts 
of  commerce  have  been  open,  and  the  centers  of  busi- 
ness have  been  full  and  active.  It  was  predicted  when 
the  rebellion  broke  out  that  New  York,  Boston,  Phila- 
delphia, and  other  great  business  centers  would  be- 
come wastes ;  that  the  grass  would  grow  in  the  streets, 
etc.  On  the  contrary,  more  activity  and  commercial 
thrift  has  been  realized  than  had  been  known  in  ordi- 
nary periods. 

There  has  been  a  happy  exemption  from  disease. 
Plague  and  pestilence  have  not  been  suffered  to  brood 
over  the  land,  filling  it  with  shadows  and  tears.  Sad 
it  is  to  think  of  the  havoc  of  war,  and  of  the  sighs  and 
tears  of  widowhood  and  orphanage;  yet  we  may  well 


OUR   NATIONAL    PROGRESS.  24 1 

be  thankful  before  the  Lord  that  he  has  granted  us 
health  and  plenty  in  all  our  borders. 

Our  progress  in  science,  inventions,  and  religion  has 
been  most  gratifying.  While  the  tread  of  armies  and 
the  booming  of  war's  dread  artillery  have  shaken  the 
land,  the  schools,  colleges,  and  academies  have  stood 
open,  and  the  young  have  been  trained  in  sound  learn- 
ing, while  literature  and  discovery  have  extended  their 
sphere  and  multiplied  their  triumphs.  Inventions  have 
elevated  us  into  the  greatest  of  maritime  powers  in  the 
world.  The  naval  engagements  of  the  War  of  1812 
proved  us  then  to  be  more  than  a  match  for  the  proud 
British  Empire,  to  which  for  centuries  had  been  con- 
ceded the  naval  supremacy  of  all  the  world.  The 
achievements  of  the  Monitor  excited  at  first  the  terror, 
and  then  the  admiration  of  other  Powers. 

Religion  has  held  sway,  even  during  the  preva- 
lence of  grim-visaged  war.  Our  army  is  a  more  re- 
ligious one  than  was  ever  marshaled.  The  Sabbath  is 
respected,  profane  swearing  is  interdicted  by  army 
orders.  Our  generals,  and  more  recently  our  com- 
mander-in-chief, President  Lincoln,  have  issued  orders 
directing  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath.  A  thousand 
chaplains  minister  to  the  bodily  and  mental  welfare 
of  our  million  troops ;  and  when  our  soldiers  fall  in 
battle  they  afford  them  amelioration  for  their  bodily 
sufferings,  and  point  them,  when  dying,  to  "the  Lamb 
of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world." 

Then,  too,  you  will  observe  that  the  missionary 
operations  of  the  Church  have  progressed  without  in- 
terruption or  abatement.  Though  pecuniary  pressure 
has  rested  upon  the  country,  yet  the  flow  of  voluntary 
contributions  to  the  channels  of  Christian  benevolence 
has  been  constant  and  undiminished. 

Besides,  consider  with  what  a  generous  benevo- 
lence the  demands  of  the  wounded  and  sick  of  our 
16 


242      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

troops  have  been  met.  Untaxed  by  State  enactments 
and  unenforced  by  legal  claims,  lint,  clothing,  nursing, 
luxuries,  have  been  procured,  and  bestowed  with  a 
promptitude  and  profusion  unparalleled  in  history. 
Contributions  for  the  Sanitary  Commission  have 
flowed  in  from  all  parts,  from  the  mountain  and  the 
valley,  from  the  forest  dell  and  the  broad  prairies,  from 
agricultural  and  mining  districts,  uniting  a  thousand 
rivulets  to  form  a  swelling  river  of  benevolence.  Silver 
bricks  from  Washoe,  golden  bars  from  Lewiston,  and 
coin  from  other  places,  have  gone  singing  with  a 
merry  jingle  to  their  merciful  mission. 

Another  occasion  of  thanksgiving  is  the  exist- 
ence and  exhibition  of  the  noblest  Christian  patriotism 
upon  the  grandest  scale. 

When  the  glorious  banner  was  insulted  at  Sum- 
ter, and  its  brave  defenders  were  beleaguered  by  swarm- 
ing thousands  of  rebels,  an  electric  thrill  of  patriotic 
sympathy  pervaded  the  whole  loyal  States,  and  sev- 
enty-five thousand  men  rushed  at  the  call  of  their 
President  to  defend  the  National  Capital,  and  then  a 
half  million,  and  afterwards  as  many  more,  ranged 
themselves  on  the  side  of  the  country,  the  laws,  and 
the  nationality.  Brave,  "constant  as  the  polar  star," 
valorous,  and  invincible,  a  wall  of  living  breasts  sur- 
rounds the  rebel  district,  to  conquer  or  to  die.  To  say 
that  all  this  springs  from  love  of  country,  simply  be- 
cause it  is  the  place  of  our  birth,  or  because  it  is  a 
great  and  glorious  land,  is  to  describe  an  inadequate 
cause  for  such  an  effect. 

That  is  not  the  brightest  type  of  patriotism.  There 
are  other  lands  as  beautiful ;  other  regions  where  the 
skies  are  as  serene,  where  the  drapery  of  mountain  and 
valley,  woodland  and  lawn,  is  as  lovely;  where  the  air 
is  rs  genial  and  balmy  as  in  this ;  and, besides, there  are 
adopted  citizens  from  vine-clad  France  and  from  the 


CHRISTIAN  PATRIOTISM.  243 

forests  of  Germany,  from  the  hills  of  Switzerland,  Eng- 
land, and  from  Ireland,  whose  patriotic  zeal  burns 
as  fervently  as  that  of  the  native  citizen.  The  patriot- 
ism of  the  American  citizen  has  a  higher,  nobler  source 
than  this.  It  takes  hold  of  the  great  principles  of  de- 
mocracy. It  battles  for  our  institutions,  and  it  intelli- 
gently comprehends  their  exalted  character  and  their 
inestimable  value.  It  is  a  Christian  patriotism,  such 
as  that  for  which  the  Pilgrims  left  the  soil  of  op- 
pression, and  planted  themselves 

"On  a  stern  and  rock-bound  coast." 

Our  Constitution  is  Christian.  It  does  not  indeed 
enact  Christianity  as  a  State  religion.  Christianity 
needs  no  such  support.  It  is  only  burdened  and  in- 
jured by  such  trammels.  Christ  said,  "My  kingdom 
is  not  of  this  world."  Yet  while  no  clause  in  the  Con- 
stitution says  that  Christianity  shall  be  the  established 
religion,  and  while  we  would  not  upon  any  account 
have  it  so  say,  it  gives  free  toleration  to  all  sects  and 
opinions  and  creeds.  It  lays  no  edict  of  restriction 
nor  prohibition  upon  the  creeds  and  consciences  of 
the  people,  leaving  every  man  free  to  elect  his  own 
theory,  and  to  worship  according  to  the  dictates  of  his 
own  conscience,  and  it  is  pervaded  throughout  by  the 
principles  and  spirit  of  Christianity. 

Our  Government  is  based  upon  the  acknowledged 
rights  of  the  masses.  The  divine  right  of  kings  is  the 
foundation  of  monarchies ;  the  possession  of  physical 
power  is  the  patent  of  despots;  but  the  Government 
under  whose  genial  shadow  we  have  been  protected 
and  fostered  recognizes  the  rights,  God-given  and  in- 
alienable, of  all  men  to  self-government.  The  ruler 
and  subject  among  us  as  to  natural  rights  are  equal; 
in  fact,  the  ruler  is  the  servant  of  the  people,  from 
whom  he  derives  his  right  to  govern  them. 


244     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

The  force  of  this  view  is  not  to  be  broken  by  aver- 
ring that  while  this  is  the  case  in  theory,  in  reality  the 
fact  is  otherwise.  The  slavery  in  the  United  States  is 
such  by  the  force  of  State  laws.  "The  Declaration  of 
Independence  was  the  germ  from  which  the  Constitu- 
tion grew  into  a  goodly  tree.  While  our  fathers  who 
framed  the  Constitution  were  from  slave  States,  they 
were  very  careful  not  to  allow  the  words  slave  and 
slavery  to  enter  it.  They  could  not  say  one  thing  in 
the  Declaration,  and  the  opposite  in  the  Constitution." 

See  how  they  resisted  the  idea  of  rank  and  titles 
and  dignities.  The  South  Carolinians,  then,  as  now, 
the  evil  genius  of  the  Nation,  sought  to  incorporate 
slavery  into  that  sacred  instrument ;  but  their  efforts 
were  vain.  The  Constitution,  so  far  as  the  Federal 
Union  was  concerned,  is  the  product  of  a  triumphant 
struggle  for  freedom.  In  that  struggle  three  things 
were  accomplished:  "i.  The  foreign  slave-trade  was 
doomed,  and  that  before  any  other  civilized  power 
had  condemned  it.  2.  The  word  slave  was  not  allowed 
to  occur  in  the  Constitution ;  the  allusions  to  it  were 
circumlocutions  such  as  the  pious  employ  when  quot- 
ing an  instance  of  profanity.  3.  The  Constitution 
was  framed  with  prophetic  cunning  for  the  day  of  uni- 
versal liberty;  and  if  the  whole  country  should  to- 
morrow, either  by  the  action  of  the  States  interested, 
or  as  an  incident  of  the  war,  contain  none  but  free 
States,  the  Constitution  would  not  want  an  amend- 
ment to  conform  it  to  the  new  state  of  things.  There 
would  be  marks  to  intimate  its  history,  and  to  tell  what 
dangerous  roads  it  had  been  called  to  travel,  but  it 
would  want  neither  piecing,  nor  patching,  nor  darn- 
ing. This,  I  confess,  gives  to  my  affection  for  my 
country  the  sanction  of  my  reason,  and  enables  my 
religion  all  the  easier  to  ally  itself  with  and  to  invig- 
orate and  inflame  my  patriotism.     And  we  may  say  of 


CIVIL   AND  RELIGIOUS  FREEDOM.  245 

the  Constitution,  in  view  of  the  struggles  through 
which  it  has  triumphantly  passed,  as  the  dying  Jacob 
said  of  Joseph:  'The  archers  have  sorely  grieved  him, 
and  shot  at  him,  and  hated  him ;  but  his  bow  abode 
in  strength,  and  the  arms  of  his  hands  were  made 
strong  by  the  hands  of  the  mighty  God  of  Jacob.'  ,; 

Thus  we  find  that  our  General  Government,  now 
attempted  to  be  overthrown,  is  in  perfect  agreement 
with  Christ's  doctrines  of  the  freedom  of  religion  and 
the  brotherhood  of  men.  So  that  not  only  are  we 
bound  to  our  country  by  the  ties  of  nativity  or  cordial 
adoption,  by  its  physical  features,  by  its  history,  and 
by  its  literature ;  these  are  only  as  a  beautiful  frame 
in  which  is  set  the  living  picture  of  our  moral  and 
religious  convictions.  Our  patriotism,  therefore,  with- 
out scruple — nay,  with  joy — receives  into  its  bosom  the 
element  of  religion,  and  feels  that,  in  defending  the 
country,  it  is  defending  not  merely  mountains  and 
rivers,  not  merely  geographical  boundaries,  but  the 
very  cause  of  God  himself. 

These  facts  bring  into  the  present  conflict  the 
martyr  element,  rendering  our  soldiers  heroic.  It  was 
the  conviction  of  a  high  sense  of  right  and  duty  which 
nerved  their  arm  in  battle  and  bore  them  on  to  noble 
deeds,  which  animated  them  in  the  dreadful  fight  and 
cheered  them  as  they  fell  under  the  iron  hail  of  battle. 
A  martyr  is  a  witness  unto  blood  for  the  truth  of  God. 
"The  unholy  war  now  waging  is  waged  by  the  enemies 
of  the  doctrine  of  Christ,  that  freedom  of  religious 
thought  and  action  and  universal  brotherhood  are  the 
rights  of  man." 

The  great  idea  of  the  gospel  is  man's  right  to  self- 
government  and  religious  toleration;  and  for  this  not 
only  professed  Christians,  but  the  whole  loyal  portion 
of  the  Union  are  devoting  their  blood  and  treasure. 
They  have  drunk  in  this  sentiment  with  their  earliest 


246     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

food,  and  our  adopted  fellow-citizens  have  imbibed 
it  as  they  do  our  native  air.  It  is  a  principle  for  which 
they  are  fighting,  and  the  result  can  not  be  doubtful. 
Our  path  as  a  Nation  may  lie  through  fire  and  storm; 
long  years  of  trial  and  conflict  may  be  before  us; 
France  and  England  and  Austria  may  intervene,  and 
the  present  army  may  melt  away,  only  to  be  succeeded 
by  another  and  another;  but  through  all  and  beyond 
all  I  see  the  coming  certain  victory.  This  Nation  will 
survive ;  freedom  will  live ;  self-government  will  be  per- 
petuated ;  and  from  the  present  darkness  and  strife  and 
disaster  will  emerge  the  Republic,  regenerated  by  its 
baptism  of  blood  and  fire.  Our  gallant  ship  of  State, 
however  angrily  the  surges  of  rebellion  and  disaster 
may  dash  against  her,  and  through  whatever  storms 
and  tempests  her  course  may  lead,  shall  not  founder. 
The  poetic  prophecy  shall  become  history — 

"Her  topsails  feel  the  freshening  gale; 

She  strikes  the  opening  sea; 
She  rounds  the  points,  she  threads  the  keys 

That  guard  the  land  of  flowers, 
And  rides  at  last  where  firm  and  fast 

Her  own  Gibraltar  towers! 

The  good  ship  Union's  voyage  is  o'er, 

At  anchor  safe  she  swings, 
And  loud  and  clear  with  cheer  on  cheer, 

Her  joyous  welcome  rings; 
Hurrah!  Hurrah!  it  shakes  the  wave, 

It  thunders  on  the  shore — 
One  flag,  one  land,  one  heart,  one  hand, 

One  nation,  evermore!" 

Has  not  God  said,  "I  will  overturn,  overturn,  over- 
turn it?"  Now  such  a  patriotism,  founded  in  such 
principles,  rooted  in  such  a  soil,  and  contending  with 
such  enemies  and  for  such  a  priceless  inheritance,  is 


EDITORIAL    ON  PATRIOTISM.  247 

worthy  of  our  gratitude.  We  may  and  we  should  unite 
as  a  people  to  render  praise  to  God  that  we  live  to 
mingle  in  such  a  strife;  that  we  are  permitted  to  feel 
the  impulses  of  this  Divine  patriotism,  and  to  share  the 
glory  of  that  inexpressible  victory,  when,  not  in  theory 
only,  but  in  deed  and  in  truth,  we,  as  a  Nation,  shall 
have  wrought  out  and  fought  out  and  maintained,  bj 
God's  blessing  upon  our  patriotism  and  our  arms,  that 
glorious  truth,  "Liberty  and  Union,  one  and  inseparable, 
now  and  forever!" 

The  paper  still  continued  to  show  its  patriotism 
and  loyalty  to  the  Government,  as  well  as  to  pro- 
mote the  spiritual  interests  of  its  readers.  The  fol- 
lowing editorials  were  inserted  at  the  dates  indi- 
cated : 

PATRIOTISM.     (May  3,  1862.) 

"The  love  of  one's  country;  the  passion  which 
aims  to  serve  one's  country,  either  in  defending  it 
from  invasion,  or  protecting  its  rights,  and  maintain- 
ing its  laws  and  institutions  in  vigor  and  purity,"  is 
denned  to  be  patriotism.  It  is  certainly  the  "char- 
acteristic of  a  good  citizen,"  and  "the  noblest  passion 
that  animates  a  man  in  the  character  of  a  citizen." 
We  go  further,  and  aver  that  we  can  not  see  how  a 
man  who  lacks  patriotism  can  be  a  Christian.  If  un- 
true to  his  country,  how  can  he  be  true  to  his  God? 
"He  that  is  unjust  in  that  which  is  least,  is  unjust  also 
in  that  which  is  much."  If  a  man  be  true  to  his  God, 
he  can  not  be  untrue  to  his  country;  because  the  love 
of  country  is  implanted  by  the  Creator,  and  fidelity 
to  one's  country  is  enjoined  in  the  Word  of  God.  Yet 
patriotism  is  not  the  whole  of  religion.  The  same  law 
which  enjoins  civil  obedience,  and  the  same  I^awgivej 


248     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

who  denounces  resistance  to  the  powers  that  be,  de- 
mand that  while  we  render  to  "Caesar  the  things  that 
are  Caesar's,"  we  shall  render  to  God  the  things  that 
are  God's.  The  former  Christians  should  do,  and  not 
leave  the  latter  undone.  It  is  a  matter  of  gratitude  and 
hope  that  this  Rebellion  is  developing  bright  and  glo- 
rious examples  of  patriotism.  What  a  record  is  that 
of  Anderson,  and  Slemmer,  and  Doubleday,  and  Hart, 
and  Brownlow,  and  Andrew  Johnson,  and  Prentice, 
and  the  six  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men  who  are 
laying  their  lives  on  the  altar  of  country!  There  are 
many  unwritten  examples.  Bankers  have  freely  ten- 
dered their  money,  artisans  their  labors  and  inventions; 
women,  amid  their  tears,  and  with  well-nigh  breaking 
hearts,  have  yielded  their  husbands,  fathers,  sons, 
brothers,  and  lovers  for  the  common  safety  and  de- 
liverance. All  this  has  been  voluntary;  there  has  been 
no  conscription  or  impressment.  Self-moved  and  vol- 
untary, twenty  millions — with  occasional  exceptions — ■ 
have  tendered  everything  sacred  and  dear  on  earth 
for  the  defense  of  their  country.  Who  can  look  upon 
this  remarkable  exhibition  without  thanking  God  that 
he  is  an  American  citizen?  The  mind  loves  to  linger 
upon  individual  instances  and  admire  them.  An  old 
naval  officer  who  had  seen  a  half-century  of  service 
under  the  Starry  Banner,  was  approached  by  rebels, 
who  sought  to  seduce  him  from  his  allegiance.  They 
offered  him  money,  promotion,  honors,  if  he  would 
desert  his  flag,  and  raise  the  Palmetto  standard.  He 
asked  them  whether,  after  fifty  years  of  service  in  the 
United  States  navy,  rendered  under  his  official  oath, 
they  could  trust  him  should  he  join  them.  They  re- 
sponded affirmatively.  "Then,"  said  the  noble,  scarred 
veteran,  "if  after  all  that  you  could  trust  me,  I  could 
not  trust  youT  and  the  seducers  desisted. 


PATRIOTISM.  249 

Not  less  striking  is  an  instance  which  occurred  in 
Charleston,  South  Carolina.  We  submit  it  as  we  find 
it  in  one  of  our  exchanges : 

Poor  F is  dead.  Before  the  fall  of  Sumter  he  ex- 
erted all  his  influence,  using  both  pen  and  voice  against 
rebellion,  until  he  was  thrown  into  prison.  At  first  he  was 
treated  as  an  ordinary  criminal  awaiting  trial;  but  after  tbe 
battle  of  Manassas  the  Confederates  seemed  drunk  with 
triumph  at  their  victory,  and  mad  with  rage  over  the  vast 
number  of  victims  who  fell  in  their  ranks.  I  wrote  you  with 
what  pomp  this  city  mourned  for  her  dead;  amid  it  all,  when 

the  Confederate  host  seemed  likely  to  win,  F was  offered 

freedom  and  promotion  if  he  would  espouse  the  Confederate 
cause.  "I  have  sworn  allegiance  to  the  Union,"  said  he,  "and 
am  not  one  to  break  my  pledge."  When  tempted  with  pro- 
motion if  he  could  be  prevailed  on  to  enlist  beneath  their 
banner,  he  said,  "I  love  Carolina  and  the  South;  but  I  love 
my  country  better." 

Finding  him  faithful  to  the  flag  he  loved,  he  was  made 
to  feel  the  power  of  his  enemies.  He  was  cast  into  a  miser- 
able, damp,  ill-ventilated  cell,  and  fed  on  coarse  fare;  half  the 
time  neglected  by  his  drunken  keeper.  His  property  was 
confiscated,  and  his  wife  and  children  beggared.  Poor  fellow! 
he  sank  beneath  his  troubles,  and  was  soon  removed  from 
the  persecution  of  his  oppressors.  The  day  before  his  death 
he  said  to  his  wife,  "Mary,  you  are  beggared  because  I  would 
not  prove  disloyal."  "God  be  thanked  for  your  fidelity!"  re- 
plied the  wife.  "They  have  taken  your  wealth  and  life,  but 
coulcU  not  stain  your  honor,  and  our  children  shall  boast  of 
an  unspotted  name.  My  husband,  rejoice  in  your  truth." 
She  returned  to  her  friends  after  his  death,  openly  declaring 
her  proudest  boast  should  be,  her  husband  died  a  martyr  to 
his  patriotism.  Who  shall  say  the  day  of  heroism  has 
passed? 

We  will  not  cite  further  examples  at  the  present; 
but  we  take  leave  to  suggest  that  religion  also  has  de- 
mands upon  us  as  Christians,  as  ministers,  and  as  men. 
In  the  excitements  raging  around  us,  and  while  pa- 
triotism summons  us  to  the  rescue,  let  us  not  be  for- 


250      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

getful  of  the  religious  duties  we  owe  to  God,  to  our- 
selves, to  our  fellow-men.  The  Pittsburg  Advocate  has 
a  timely  article  on  revival  excitements.  We  give  a 
portion  of  it,  and  commend  it  to  our  readers : 

It  is  no  longer  an  experiment  what  effect  the  war  is  to 
have  on  the  institution  of  Christianity.  Ten  months  of  trial 
has  settled  the  question.  At  the  beginning  of  the  rebellion 
all  seemed  uncertain  and  conjectural,  and  the  outlook  into 
the  future  was  gloomy  and  forbidding.  Now  prominent  and 
well-defined  landmarks  lie  all  around  us.  Guided  by  the 
lights  of  the  past  month,  it  is  easy  to  take  soundings  and 
see  whither  we  are  drifting. 

Throughout  the  rebel  States  religion  has  greatly  suf- 
fered. The  papers  published  in  the  interest  of  the  various 
denominations  have  mostly  yielded  to  the  pressure  of  the 
hour,  and  suspended.  Occasionally  a  voice  reaches  us  be- 
wailing the  desolations  of  Zion,  and  pointing  to  the  temples 
of  religion  as  deserted  and  silent.  Evidences  from  the  South 
are  cumulative,  that  the  history  of  religion  under  the  incubus 
of  rebellion  is  a  history  of  gloom  and  sadness.  Societies 
scattered,  ministers  without  flocks  and  without  support,  the 
benevolent  enterprises  of  the  Church  paralyzed, — these  are 
pictures  of  religious  life  at  the  South,  as  drawn  by  their  own 
limners.  It  is  not  so  with  us.  Except  along  the  border,  re- 
ligious institutions  continue  to  be  observed,  and  religious 
enterprises  continue  to  move  much  as  was  their  wont  in  times 
of  peace.  The  religious  press  is  in  vigorous  operation. 
Churches  are  well  attended,  and  the  support  of  the  various 
religious  establishments  suffer  enly  in  proportion  with  the 
general  monetary  interests  of  the  country.  Prosperity,  so 
grateful  to  the  religious  sense  of  the  Nation,  and  withal 
so  unexpected,  is  cause  for  gratitude  to  the  beneficent  Giver 
of  every  good  and  perfect  gift.  To  all  this  a  new  evidence 
of  the  Divine  benediction  on  the  Churches  of  the  loyal 
States  is  now  to  be  superadded.  Revival  notices  begin  to 
appear  in  the  most  of  our  religious  exchanges,  and  form, 
indeed,  a  considerable  department  in  our  own  Church  papers. 
At  no  former  period  were  these  "times  of  refreshing  from 
the  presence  of  the  Lord"  more  grateful  and  encouraging, 
since  they  attest  that,  amid  the  din  and  smoke  of  battle,  God 
has  not  forgotten  his  Church. 


THE   REBELLION.  25 1 

But  it  is  a  question  whether  we. are  enjoying  the  utmost 
prosperity  that  might  fall  to  our  lot.  Perhaps  we  have  al- 
lowed the  vast  interests  of  religion  to  be  thrown  too  much 
into  the  shade  by  the  towering  and  irresistible  war  spirit 
that  rules  in  the  land.  Perhaps  we  have  not  talked  too  much 
about  patriotism  and  the  war;  but  too  little  about  the  sal- 
vation of  souls.  Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified,  salvation  by 
faith,  and  reformations  that  shall  lead  to  a  life  of  well-doing, 
are  the  sublime  themes  of  the  gospel  ministry.  These  topics 
will  make  the  pulpit  successful  in  winning  souls  even  during 
war  times.  But  they  must  not  be  assigned  a  secondary  rank. 
The  welfare  of  the  soul  is,  beyond  all  other  questions,  of  in- 
finite moment.  Nothing  should  be  allowed  to  paralyze  ef- 
forts for  its  salvation — not  politics,  nor  the  pursuit  of  wealth, 
nor  even  patriotism  in  this  hour  when  the  national  life  is  in 
controversy.  It  is  the  one  work  of  the  ministry  to  save  men. 
And  it  is  pleasant  to  reflect  that  this  work  is  going  on  with 
vigor,  though  the  Nation  is  involved  in  all  the  horrors  of  a 
gigantic  war.  The  honored  minister  of  God,  favored  with 
success  in  his  work  of  winning  souls,  is  achieving  nobler 
victories  than  the  greatest  military  captains.  And  though  a 
rival  excitement  has  for  months  engrossed  all  minds  and 
occupied  all  thoughts,  this  is  not  a  wholly  unpropitious  time 
to  enforce  on  men  the  claims  of  religion.  We  are  -a  chas- 
tened Nation.  The  hand  of  God  has  touched  us.  And  this 
hour  of  great  national  sorrow  may  furnish  a  fitting  occasion 
on  which  to  press  men  to  turn  to  God.  Subdued  by  a  sense 
of  helplessness,  and  admonished  by  the  perils  of  the  times, 
to  whom  should  the  Nation  look  for  help  but  God,  and  what 
better  occasion  can  the  Church  have  for  lifting  the  Nation 
up  to  God? 

THE  REBELLION.    (August  30,  1862.) 

The  great  rebellion  has  been  in  operation  consid- 
erably over  a  year.  Has  the  determination  of  the 
loyal  people  to  suppress  the  rebellion  faltered?  So 
far  from  that,  the  purpose  is  constantly  becoming 
stronger,  to  maintain  the  national  integrity  against 
any  and  all  enemies,  whether  domestic  or  foreign,  and 
also  to  prosecute  the  war  with  greater  vigor  and  more 
terrible  earnestness.     An   immense   mass-meeting  of 


252     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK'. 

loyal  citizens  was  hekl  in  New  York  on  the  15th  of 
July  last,  which  was  as  large  as  that  of  April,  186 1, 
if  not  larger.  At  the  recent  gathering  the  resolutions 
of  1861  were  reaffirmed.  Others  were  adopted  ex- 
pressive of  the  conviction  that  this  war  is  waged  only 
for  the  overthrow  of  disloyalty ;  that  no  claims  or  privi- 
leges beyond  those  conferred  by  the  Constitution  upon 
our  fathers  are  sought;  that  the  establishment  and  en- 
forcement of  the  Constitution  in  all  its  vigor,  not  a  line 
erased  or  interpolated,  is  the  great  object  sought.  This 
resolution  also  was  adopted: 

Resolved,  That  we  are  for  the  Union  of  the  States,  the 
integrity  of  the  country,  and  the  maintenance  of  the  Govern- 
ment without  any  condition  or  qualification  whatever;  and 
we  will  stand  by  them  and  uphold  them  under  all  circum- 
stances, and  at  every  necessary  sacrifice  of  life  or  treasure. 

These,  and  others  expressive  of  confidence  in  the 
Administration,  and  of  admiration  for  the  valor  and 
prowess  of  our  army  and  navy,  were  adopted  with  en- 
tire unanimity ;  all  showing  that  so  far  as  New  York, 
the  moneyed  and  commercial  center  of  the  Nation,  is 
concerned,  the  great  heart  of  the  people  beats  true  to 
the  Government  through  the  darkest  and  wildest 
storms  of  revolution. 

This  resolution,  adopted  with  the  utmost  enthusi- 
asm, has  the  ring  of  the  true  metal : 

Resolved,  That,  steadily  pursuing  the  wise  policy  of  our 
fathers,  we  never  mean  to  interfere  in  the  internal  conflicts 
of  foreign  States;  but  here,  beneath  this  outstretched  sky,  in 
the  presence  of  Almighty  God,  and  of  one  another,  we  pledge 
our  lives,  our  fortunes,  and  our  sacred  honor,  never  to  aban- 
don this  struggle  while  there  remains  a  traitor  in  the  land, 
and  that  any  armed  intervention  by  any  foreign  Power  in 
our  present  domestic  affliction  shall  prove  the  signal  for  the 
spirit  of  Liberty  to  commence  its  triumphant  march  through 
Europe. 


PUTTING   DOWN   THE  REBELLION.  253 

While  the  moderation,  conciliation,  and  wisdom 
of  the  Administration  have  elicited  the  approval  of  all 
conservative  men,  yet  true  and  loyal  men  in  the  border 
States,  the  soldiers  in  the  field,  and  the  great  mass  of 
the  loyal  people  feel  that  the  war  should  hereafter  be 
more  vigorously  and  decisively  prosecuted;  that  the 
day  for  temporizing  and  for  gentle  measures  has 
passed.  To  this  conclusion,  it  is  believed,  the  Presi- 
dent, Congress,  and  the  people  are  rapidly  coming 
with  great  unanimity.  That  noble  patriot,  Andrew 
Johnson,  uttered  the  following  in  a  Fourth  of  July 
speech  at  Nashville: 

Some  professed  to  entertain  a  holy  horror  of  coercion. 
Why,  force  and  error  have  coerced  the  South  into  her  present 
position,  and  nothing  but  force  and  power  will  bring  her 
back.  You  were  coerced  by  the  violence  and  force  of  seces- 
sion, and  the  spirit  of  secession  must  be  subdued  and  con- 
trolled by  force.  The  strong  arm  of  the  Government  must 
be  bared,  and  justice  must  do  her  work.  We  may  as  well 
understand  the  fact  first  as  last,  and  go  to  work  rationally. 
Without  force  and  power  to  coerce,  we  have  no  Government. 
How  have  matters  gone  on  heretofore?  Why,  when  the 
Union  army  came,  the  first  to  run  to  it  for  protection  and 
privileges  were  Secessionists,  who  got  promises  of  protec- 
tion if  they  would  remain  neutral.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
poor  Union  men  were  terrified  with  threats  of  vengeance 
if  the  rebel  army  should  return.  The  Secessionist  was  pro- 
tected by  the  Union  army,  and  was  equally  confident  of  pro- 
tection should  the  rebel' army  return;  so  he  felt  perfectly 
easy.  The  Union  man  dreaded  utter  ruin  should  a  reverse 
occur,  and  was  filled  with  perpetual  alarm.  So,  under  this 
strange  policy  the  rebel  had  two  guarantees,  and  the  Union 
man  but  one.  It  was  time  this  was  stopped.  The  time  has 
arrived  when  treason  must  be  made  odious,  and  traitors  im- 
poverished. These  men  have  used  their  prosperity  to  destroy 
the  Government,  and  fill  the  land  with  bankruptcy  and  dis- 
tress; they  have  given  their  wealth  freely  to  aid  rebellion 
and  treason,  and  drench  the  land  in  fraternal  blood,  and 
crush  out  the  last  vestige  of  liberty,  and  their  property  should 
be  taken  from  them  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  war.     They 


254     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

are  the  guilty  ones;  they  are  the  real  criminals.  The  poor 
have  been  deluded  and  dragged  into  this  war,  while  the 
authors  and  instigators,  who  have  kept  up  the  war  by  their 
money  and  contributions,  have  skulked  at  home  and  de- 
manded the  protection  of  the  Federal  Government.  Why, 
many  of  these  elegant  gentlemen  rebelled  to  get  rid  of  paying 
tluir  Northern  debts.  If  a  miserable,  crippled  Negro,  worth 
five  hundred  dollars,  was  stolen,  the  Government  must  be 
overthrown  if  the  Negro  could  not  be  recovered;  but  your 
polite,  fastidious,  and  chivalrous  merchant  can  go  among 
what  he  calls,  "blue-bellied  Yankees,"  buy  their  goods  on 
credit,  and  then,  when  pay-day  comes,  tell  his  creditors  in 
the  North,  "O,  1  have  seceded!"  It  is  an  outrageous  crime 
to  steal  a  Negro;  but  it  is  gentlemanly  financiering  to  de- 
fraud a  Northern  creditor  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars. 

THE  REBELLION.     (Jui,y  5,  1862.} 

Three  questions  force  themselves,  at  this  moment, 
upon  the  American  people ;  viz.,  Will  this  rebellion 
soon  be  suppressed?  Will  its  suppression  restore 
union  and  harmony  between  the  sections  now  discord- 
ant and  belligerent?  Will  the  present  rebellion  leave 
the  Union  stronger  or  weaker  than  it  was  before? 

The  first  question  hardly  needs  an  argument  or  a 
reply.  The  affirmative  answer  comes  up  from  millions 
of  loyal  men  and  women.  Only  the  secession  sympa- 
thizers in  Europe,  and  those  in  the  States  whose  sym- 
pathies are  with  the  insurrectionists,  pretend  to  dissent 
from  the  unanimous  conclusion  of  loyal  Americans 
that  the  end  of  rebellion  and  insurrection  draws  near. 
Already  Southern  papers  and  insurrectionists  are  full 
of  apprehension  and  alarm  at  the  gloomy  future  which 
spreads  itself  out  like  an  angry  cloud  along  their 
horizon.  The  reasons  for  the  affirmative  response 
may  be  briefly  stated,  thus: 

(t)  The  right  is  on  the  side  of  the  Government. 
The  object  of  the  Government  was  in  the  beginning 


CRUSHING   THE  REBELLION.  255 

to  defend  itself,  and  suppress  the  rebellion.  To  that 
single  purpose,  President,  Congress,  and  the  army 
have  adhered  with  unvarying  constancy.  This  fidelity 
to  the  one  purpose  is  one  of  the  most  marked  and  re- 
markable characteristics  of  the  war.  True,  Fremont 
and  Phelps  and  Hunter  have  seemed  to  deviate  from 
this  object,  and  to  convert  the  war  into  an  emancipa- 
tion measure;  but  their  acts  were  disavowed  by  their 
superiors,  and  these  instances  proved  the  exceptions 
and  not  the  rule.  Is  it  not  right  for  a  Government  as 
good  and  as  beneficent  as  ours  to  defend  itself  against 
armed  assassins?  Is  it  too  much  to  expect  that  in  such 
a  conflict  God  will  be  on  our  side?  Has  not  Provi- 
dence already  shown  himself  to  be  in  our  behalf? 

(2)  In  this  case,  the  right  is  supported  by  a  large, 
well-organized,  well  disciplined  and  officered  army; 
an  army  brave,  invincible,  and  fighting  intelligently  for 
a  principle.  Its  superior  in  these  respects  has  never 
been  seen. 

(3)  The  resources  of  the  Government  are  equal  to 
all  the  demands  of  the  exigency.  Money,  men,  fer- 
tility of  invention,  are  all  with  the  Federal  side. 

(4)  The  history  of  the  war  thus  far  gives  presage 
of  its  early  and  complete  triumph.  Missouri,  Arkan- 
sas, Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Western  and  Eastern  Vir- 
ginia, North  Carolina,  Florida,  have  been  wrested  from 
the  polluting  presence  of  treason.  Everywhere,  in 
those  and  other  portions  of  the  country,  our  Starry 
Banner  floats,  in  proof  of  past,  and  in  pledge  of  future, 
progress  and  victory. 

(5)  The  momentum  of  our  previous  success  in  the 
conduct  of  the  war  presages  the  more  certain  and  rapid 
conquests  awaiting  our  forces.  As  our  momentum 
increases,  in  the  same  or  a  greater  ratio  the  dismay 
and  demoralization  of  the  enemy  are  augmented. 


The  answer  of  the  second  question  is  similar  to  that 
of  the  first,  for  the  following  reasons: 

(i)  The  people  of  the  South  have  never,  intelli- 
gently and  at  heart,  been  in  favor  of  this  Rebellion. 

(2)  If  they  had  been,  the  oppressions  under  which 
they  have  suffered,  and  which  were  imposed  by  the 
leaders  of  this  horrid  conspiracy,  such  as  conscription 
and  the  spoliation  of  their  estates,  would  have  detached 
their  sympathies. 

(3)  The  moderation  and  justice  of  our  armies  will 
undeceive  multitudes  who  were  deluded  with  the  be- 
lief that  "Beauty  and  Booty"  were  the  design  of  the 
"Northern  invaders,"  as  the  Union  army  were  desig- 
nated. 

(4)  The  rapturous  acclamations  of  the  people,  as 
with  tears  and  shouts  they  hailed  and  welcomed  the 
returning  flag  of  our  Union,  prove  that  their  old  love 
for  the  national  colors  was  not  dead,  but  only  stifled ; 
and  that  it  will  burn  again  as  before,  except  that  the 
patriotism  rekindled  will  be  stronger  and  more  incor- 
ruptible. Yes,  we  shall  again  be  one  people,  with  a 
common  sympathy,  a  common  patriotism,  and  a  com- 
mon destiny,  the  cords  of  national  unity  and  peace 
confirmed  and  established. 

These  answers  to  the  first  two  inquiries  forestall 
that  to  the  last.  This  Nation  will  be  stronger  and 
better  than  before.  Our  enhanced  Federal  consoli- 
dation and  our  success  will  not  only  preclude  the  hope 
and  the  attempt  of  any  future  insurrection,  but  it  will 
at  once  raise  the  Government  above  the  power  of  any 
foreign  nation.  The  United  States  will  not  only  stand 
abreast  with  Great  Britain,  France,  or  Russia;  she  will 
rank  any  one  of  them  single,  and  equal  all  of  them 
combined.  But  the  great  national  debt,  it  is  feared 
by  some,  will  cripple  our  energies  and  impoverish  our 
people.     The  fear  is  unfounded.     The  United   States 


THE  NATION'S  STRENGTH.  257 

were  never  so  strong  in  the  elements  of  material  wealth 
and  greatness  as  now,  while  conducting  this  memo- 
rable campaign ;  and  when  it  is  fully  over,  the  Nation 
will  shake  off  this  incumbrance  as  the  lion  shakes  the 
dew  of  the  morning  from  his  mane,  and  start  forward 
upon  a  career  of  progress  unprecedented  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world.  It  is  sad  to  think  of  the  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  noble  lives  that  have  been  sacrificed  upon  the 
altar  of  liberty  and  law,  and  of  the  still  greater  num- 
bers who  bear,  and  who  will  bear,  the  scars  of  terrible 
battle.  Yet  these  will  embalm  the  more  in  the  affec- 
tions of  a  delivered  and  great  people  the  cause  which 
demanded  not  in  vain  such  a  libation.  Dark  as  has 
been  the  stormcloud  which  has  spent  its  fury  upon 
us,  already  the  bow  of  promise  spans  the  heavens,  and 
beyond  the  present  hour  may  be  seen  the  clear  azure 
and  the  shining  sun. 
17 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

BEFORE  Oregon  was  admitted  as  a  State  in 
1857,  even  before  she  was  organized  as  a  Ter- 
ritory by  Congress,  which  occurred  August  14, 
1848,  emigrants  in  considerable  numbers  from  Cali- 
fornia and  the  Atlantic  States  had  settled  in  Oregon. 
In  1834,  Oregon  had  received  an  accession  to  her 
population,  made  up  of  missionaries  sent  thither 
by  the  Missionary  Society  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church.  There  were  Revs.  Jason  and  Daniel 
Lee,  and  probably  one  or  two  others,  who  sailed 
to  Oregon  by  sea  around  Cape  Horn.  This  action 
was  probably  stimulated  by  the  appearance  in  St. 
Louis,  some  years  before,  of  three  Flathead  In- 
dians from  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains,  inquiring 
for  the  white  man's  God  and  the  white  man's  Bible. 
The  event  created  great  interest  throughout  the 
United  States.  After  going  to  Oregon  and  sur- 
veying the  situation,  Mr.  Lee  found  it  impossible 
to  plant  Indian  missions  in  Oregon  unless  a  re- 
enforcement  of  men  and  women  should  be  sent, 
who  would  be  able  to  procure  subsistence  in  Ore- 
gon, and  who  should  have  within  themselves  the 
power  to  produce  the  necessary  provisions  for  sus- 
taining life  in  that  distant  and  unfurnished  country. 
The  Indians  could  not  feed  the  newcomers.  In- 
deed, it  was  all  the  Indians  could  do,  by  hunting 
and  fishing,  to  provide  their  own  means  of  sub- 
sistence, by  hunting  the  game  in  that  country,  and 

258 


METHODIST  MISSION  COLONY.  259 

by  gathering  food  from  the  rivers,  which  abounded 
in  salmon. 

The  Hudson  Bay  Company  had  possession  of 
Oregon,  with  their  stockade  forts  and  trading  fac- 
tories, in  which  they  exchanged  goods  for  peltries 
and  furs.  They  also  produced  from  the  soil,  and 
from  flocks  and  herds  of  poultry  and  cattle,  some 
of  the  means  of  sustentation,  and  these  they  would 
not  share  with  the  missionaries,  whereby  they 
might  raise  those  things  themselves.  It  was  sup- 
posed that  the  Hudson  Bay  Company,  with  these 
accessions,  would  be  able  to  maintain  by  occupa- 
tion the  British  right  to  Oregon,  which  then  in- 
cluded all  that  was  later  known  as  Oregon,  Wash- 
ington, Idaho,  and  Montana. 

Jason  Lee  returned  to  the  States  from  Oregon, 
taking  with  him  two  Flathead 'Indians,  with  whom 
he  traversed  the  country,  making  speeches  on  Ore- 
gon and  displaying  his  Indian  boys.  His  presence 
and  appeals  produced  a  strong  impression  upon  all 
the  people,  especially  upon  the  Methodists.  Large 
contributions  of  money  were  made,  and  a  consider- 
able re-enforcement  of  mechanics  and  farmers  and 
teachers  and  millwrights  sailed  for  Oregon  in  the 
good  ship  Lausanne  in  1839,  via  Cape  Horn  and 
the  Sandwich  Islands.  They  arrived  in  Oregon  in 
1840,  when  the  mission  colony  numbered  fifty-two 
adults  and  twenty  children.  It  was  current  rumor 
that  the  United  States  assisted  the  outfit,  by  con- 
tributions-from  the  secret  service  fund,  and  that  this 
was  done  with  a  view  of  furnishing  the  claim  to 
Oregon,  as  a  part  of  the  national  domain,  by  the 


260     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK, 

argument  from  occupation.  It  is  generally  be- 
lieved that  these  early  residents,  colonists,  and  mis- 
sionaries were  potent  factors  in  determining  the 
settlement  of  the  north  boundary  contention  in 
favor  of  the  United  States. 

A  recent  attempt  has  been  made  to  claim  for 
Dr.  Marcus  Whitman,  a  Presbyterian  missionary 
to  Oregon,  the  credit  for  having  determined  the 
right  of  the  United  States  to  Oregon.  The  claim, 
however,  has  not  adequate  support  from  existing 
facts.  Rev.  H.  K.  Hines,  D.  D.,  one  of  the  later 
missionaries  to  Oregon,  has,  in  my  judgment,  fully 
established  the  claim  of  Jason  Lee  to  the  high 
honor  which  has  been  sought  for  Dr.  Whitman. 
Dr.  Marcus  Whitman  and  his  wife,  Rev.  H.  H. 
vSpalding  and  his  wife,  and  W.  H.  Gray,  crossed  the 
Plains  in  1836,  two  years  after  the  arrival  of  Jason 
and  Daniel  Lee.  Mr.  Lee's  re-enforcements 
reached  Oregon  in  1840.  Those  of  Dr.  Whitman 
four  years  later.  Dr.  Hines,  in  a  very  able  and  fair 
historical  article  in  the  Methodist  Review \  and  in 
papers  since  published  in  the  Pacific  Christian  Ad- 
vocate, has  conclusively  supported  the  superior 
claims  of  Jason  Lee  and  his  associates  over  those 
of  Dr.  Whitman  to  the  high  honor  claimed  for  Dr. 
Whitman. 

The  Hudson  Bay  Company  would  not  furnish 
sheep  or  cattle  or  horses  or  poultry  to  the  mission- 
aries. Mr.  Lee  went  to  California  and  procured 
them,  whereby  flocks  and  herds  and  poultry  were 
grown,  and  thus  the  missionaries  had  meat  for  food. 
In  1843  tne  settlers  in  the  Willamette  Valley  num- 


OREGON  TERRITORY  ORGANIZED.  26 1 

bered  two  hundred  and  forty-two.  Steps  were 
taken  to  secure  a  Government,  by  a  choice  of  offi- 
cers and  the  organization  of  a  Provisional  Govern- 
ment for  Oregon.  George  Abernethy,  a  layman, 
and  one  of  the  re-enforcemnt  of  1840,  was  elected 
the  provisional  governor.  Five  years  later  the 
United  States  Congress,  August  14,  1848,  organ- 
ized the  Territory  of  Oregon.  The  Act  included 
the  Donation  Land  Law,  by  which  every  white  set- 
tler in  Oregon,  being  there  as  such,  and  afterwards, 
until  December  1,  1851,  was  entitled  to  three  hun- 
dred and  twenty  acres  of  land,  if  a  single  man ;  and 
if  a  married  man,  his  wife  was  also  entitled  to  a  like 
quantity.  That  law  also  gave  to  every  missionary 
station  then  existing  in  Oregon  six  hundred  and 
forty  acres  of  land,  including  the  site  of  the  mission. 
The  northwestern  boundary-line  was,  however, 
long  a  vexed  question  between  the  two  Govern- 
ments. Great  Britain  claimed  Oregon  from  the 
30th  degree  of  north  latitude  to  the  60th  degree 
of  north  latitude.  The  United  States  claimed  Ore- 
gon by  virtue  of  the  entrance  of  Captain  Gray  into 
the  Columbia  River  in  1792.  We  also  held  that 
Oregon  was  included  in  the  sale  of  Louisiana  by 
France  in  1803.  In  181 8  a  treaty  of  joint  occupa- 
tion was  made  between  the  two  Governments, 
which  left  these  lines  as  a  vexed  question.  In  1842 
the  treaty  fixing  the  northern  boundary-line  of  the 
United  States  at  49  degrees  north  latitude  was  con- 
cluded between  the  United  States  and  Great  Brit- 
ain, Daniel'Webster  and  Lord  Ashburton  the  com- 
missioners between  the  contracting  powers.    It  was 


262      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

not  ratified  until  1846.  Great  Britain  wanted  the 
whole  island  of  Vancouver,  which  the  49th  parallel 
of  north  latitude  bisected  into  nearly  equal  halves. 
The  Gulf  of  Georgia  divides  Vancouver  Island  from 
the  mainland.  At  the  49th  parallel  the  gulf  be- 
tween the  island  and  the  mainland  is  quite  narrow. 
The  boundary-line  at  the  point  of  intersection  of 
the  island  is  in  terms  as  follows :  "Thence  (westerly) 
on  the  49th  degree  of  north  latitude  to  the  center 
of  the  Gulf  of  Georgia,  and  thence  by  the  main  ship 
channel  to  the  Straits  of  Fuca,  and  thence  through 
the  Straits  of  Fuca  to  the  sea."  The  part  of  the 
Gulf  of  Georgia  south  of  49  degrees  north  latitude 
is  an  immense  body  of  water,  with  very  many  isl- 
ands, large  and  small,  and  a  shore-line  of  twenty- 
eight  hundred  miles.  There  are  two  channels 
through  the  Gulf  of  Georgia,  viz. :  The  Canal  de 
Haro  and  the  Straits  of  Rosario.  The  former  is 
plain,  short,  and  direct  to  the  sea.  It  hugs  Van- 
couver Island  right  around  to  the  ocean.  A  ship 
turned  loose  on  the  49th  parallel  would  follow  the 
channel  current  without  guide  or  pilot  out  to  the 
sea.  The  channel  called  the  Straits  of  Rosario  is 
long,  crooked,  difficult,  and  unsafe.  It  hugs  the 
shore  of  the  bay,  throwing  all  the  islands  in  the 
Gulf  of  Georgia  south  of  the  49th  parallel  into 
British  America;  whereas,  the  object  in  deflecting 
the  line  on  the  east  side  of  Vancouver  Island  was 
to  throw  that  island  into  British  America,  the 
Straits  of  Rosario  line  would  throw  hundreds  of 
other  islands  south  of  49th  parallel  to  Great  Brit- 
ain.    We  claimed  all  those  islands  in  the  Gulf  of 


NORTH  BOUNDARY   OF    WASHINGTON.  263 

Georgia,  maintaining,  and  rightly,  that  the  Canal 
de  Haro  was  the  boundary-line  around  Vancouver 
Island.  The  Legislature  of  Washington  Territory 
formed  the  county  of  Whatcom,  to  include  the 
islands  in  the  Gulf  of  Georgia.  The  island  of  San 
Juan  lies  on  the  south  and  east  side  of  the  Canal 
de  Haro,  and  the  island  of  San  Juan  was  then  in- 
cluded in  the  county  of  Whatcom. 

An  employee  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company  had 
squatted  on  the  northwest  end  of  San  Juan  with 
a  flock  of  sheep.  A  Yankee  settler  had  taken  up 
his  claim  on  the  other  end  of  the  same  island.  His 
stock  consisted  of  hogs.  The  hogs  had  trespassed 
upon  the  grounds  of  the  Britisher;  or,  vice  versa, 
the  sheep  of  the  Britisher  had  trespassed  upon  the 
lands  of  the  Yankee.  Both  men  were  tenacious 
and  plucky;  neither  would  yield.  They  would  en- 
force their  several  claims.  The  Britisher  had  re- 
enforced  himself  with  an  armed  company  of  ma- 
rines. Brother  Jonathan  had  re-enforced  himself 
by  a  company  of  United  States  infantry,  under 
command  of  Captain  Pickett,  later  known  as  Gen- 
eral Pickett  of  the  Confederate  army.  Thus  they 
confronted  one  another  with  shotted  guns.  The 
slightest  mismove  might  have  precipitated  war. 
This  was  the  situation  in  the  summer  of  1859. 
President  Buchanan  sent  General  Winfield  Scott 
to  negotiate  a  truce,  until  King  William  of  Prus- 
sia should  decide  which  of  these  two  channels, 
the  Canal  de  Haro  or  the  Straits  of  Rosario,  was 
the  true  boundary-line  between  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  States,    A  few  years  ago  he  decided  that 


264     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

the  Canal  de  Ilaro  was  the  boundary-line.  When 
I  saw  General  Scott  on  his  visit  to  Oregon  upon 
that  mission,  he  was  one  of  the  finest-looking  men 
I  ever  saw.  He  was  somewhat  corpulent,  but  not 
excessively  so.  He  must  have  been  some  years 
past  seventy ;  probably  seventy-three.  His  express- 
ive blue  eyes,  and  his  ruddy,  blond  complexion, 
his  style,  and  poise,  deeply  impressed  me.  I  pub- 
lished the  following  sketch  of  him  about  the  time 
when  he  was  retired,  by  his  own  request,  from  act- 
ive military  life.  He  was  brevet  lieutenant-general 
from  January,  1841,  to  November  1,  1861 : 

GENERAL  SCOTT. 

Our  readers  will  have  noticed  that  General  Win- 
field  Scott,  by  his  own  request,  has  been  placed,  by 
order  of  the  President,  upon  the  retired  list,  and  thus, 
after  many  years  of  service  and  honor,  he  ceases  to  be 
the  commander-in-chief  of  the  military  forces  of  the 
United  States. 

General  Scott  was  born  the  13th  of  June,  1786. 
He  is,  therefore,  now  over  seventy-six  years  of  age. 
He  studied  law  in  Richmond,  Virginia  but  through 
the  influence  of  a  friend  obtained,  May  8,  1808,  a  cap- 
taincy in  the  light  artillery.  In  1809  he  was  ordered  to 
New  Orleans,  where  he  gave  offense  to  his  command- 
ing officer,  Wilkinson,  by  his  severe  military  criticisms, 
and  was  tried  by  court-martial  upon  a  charge  of  em- 
bezzlement, and,  second,  that  he  used  disrespectful 
language  towards  his  commanding  officer.  He  was 
acquitted  of  the  first  charge;  but  upon  the  second  he 
was  sentenced  to  suspension  from  rank  and  pay  for 
one  year.  He  spent  the  year  at  the  house  of  Benjamin 
Watkins  Leigh  in  pursuing  military  studies,  and  prob- 


GENERAL    WINFIELD   SCOTT.  265 

ably  there  laid  the  foundation  of  his  future  fame.  In 
July,  181 2,  he  was  appointed  lieutenant-colonel,  and 
was  stationed  at  Black  Rock.  On  the  13th  of  October 
he  was  taken  prisoner  at  the  disastrous  battle  of 
Queenstown  Heights;  not,  however,  till  he  had  shown 
of  what  he  was  capable  when  his  blood  was  up.  After 
his  exchange  he  joined  General  Dearborn  as  his  adju- 
tant, in  which  capacity  he  was  of  great  use  in  organiz- 
ing the  several  departments  of  the  army.  He  led  the 
advance  when  Fort  George  was  taken  by  storm,  and 
tore  down  the  British  colors  with  his  own  hands.  In 
July,  18 1 3,  Scott  was  promoted  to  the  command  of 
two  regiments,  resigning  his  adjutancy.  In  September 
he  burnt  the  barracks  and  public  stores  at  Toronto, 
took  eleven  armed  boats,  considerable  ammunition, 
and  several  cannon.  The  year  1813,  upon  the  whole, 
closed  disastrously  to  the  American  arms.  But  Scott's 
name  loomed  up  as  the  coming  man,  and  in  March, 
1814,  he  received  the  appointment  of  brigadier-general. 
The  army  placed  in  quarters  were  drilled  for  more 
than  three  months  by  Scott  himself,  and  were  perfected 
in  all  the  evolutions  of  war.  On  the  3d  of  July,  Scott 
took  possession  of  Fort  Erie,  and  on  the  5th  was 
fought  the  battle  of  Chippewa,  on  an  open  plain.  With 
hardly  equal  numbers,  our  brave  army  met  the  veterans 
of  England,  and  displayed  to  the  world  that  we  were 
of  the  old  race,  and  that  the  blood  of  Crecy,  Poitiers, 
of  Agincourt  and  of  Blenheim,  tingled  in  our  veins. 
Twenty  days  after  was  fought  the  battle  of  Niagara — 
the  most  bloody,  determined  engagement  which  ever 
took  place  on  this  continent,  and,  in  proportion  to 
numbers  engaged,  the  most  bloody  of  modern  warfare. 
While  Chippewa  and  Lundy's  Lane  are  remembered, 
we  shall  hear  of  no  intervention  on  the  part  of  Eng- 
land. If  Scott  had  done  nothing  more  than  given  us 
Chippewa  and  Niagara,  it  should  render  him  immortal. 


266     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

They  were  the  prelude  of  future  greatness.  They  set- 
tled, quite  as  much  as  Webster,  the  northeastern  boun- 
dary question,  the  Oregon  question,  the  Mosquito 
question,  and  will  have  an  ever-living,  abiding  influ- 
ence in  all  questions  yet  to  come. 

We  have  not  time  to  mention  the  services  of  Gen- 
eral Scott  from  the  time  he  left  Niagara,  wounded, 
to  the  present  hour.  It  is  known  of  all  men.  His 
arduous,  patriotic  toil;  his  wisdom  in  the  South  Caro- 
lina troubles,  in  the  various  disputes  with  England; 
his  triumphant  march  on  the  capital  of  the  Monte- 
zumas,  worthy  of  Marlborough  or  Turenne;  his  wise 
foresight  in  our  present  troubles  in  advising  Mr.  Buch- 
anan to  increase  the  force  in  the  Southern  forts.  But 
in  our  opinion,  the  service  which  he  rendered  his 
country,  high  above  all  others — higher  by  far  than 
the  glories  of  Niagara,  Cerro  Gordo,  or  Chapultepec; 
higher,  brighter,  purer,  more  enduring  than  the  most 
resplendent  military  achievement — was  the  shield  which 
his  great  name  afforded  against  the  assaults  of  Con- 
federate traitors,  banded  together  to  overthrow  our 
Constitution,  to  trample  on  our  laws,  dissever  our 
Union,  and  throw  the  pall  of  anarchy  over  the  fairest 
fabric  of  Constitutional  freedom  the  world  has  ever 
known.  All  honor  to  the  gallant  Massachusetts  vol- 
unteers, who  again  rendered  illustrious  the  19th  of 
April ;  all  honor  to  the  New  York  Seventh,  to  all  the 
patriotic  hosts  who  rushed  to  the  defense  of  the  be- 
leagured  Capital, — but  had  Scott  not  been  there  to 
regulate  and  arrange,  to  create  and  discipline,  we  have 
little  doubt  we  should  to-day  have  to  mourn  over  the 
burning  embers  of  our  smoking  Capitol.  Go,  then, 
leader  of  our  armies ;  thou  hast  led  us  to  victory  and 
honor;  thou  hast  saved  us  in  the  hour  of  our  peril, 
and  as  thou  descendest  into  the  dark  night  of  the 
tomb  thou  wilt  be  followed  by  the  best  wishes  of  a 


FIRST  MISSION  HOUSE  IN  OREGON  267 

still  great,  happy,  free,  exulting  Nation.  Your  name 
and  ours  are  forever  united.  Washington  first,  Scott 
second;  who  shall  be  third? 

When  this  sketch  was  written,  Lincoln  had  not 
yet  achieved  the  glory  which  afterwards  garlanded 
him.  Grant  and  Garfield  were  then  unknown 
quantities. 

OUR  FIRST  MISSION  HOUSE  IN  OREGON. 

Our  missionaries  in  Oregon  having,  in  Sep- 
tember, 1834,  selected  the  spot  on  which  to  erect 
a  comfortable  habitation,  like  pioneer  settlers,  as 
well  as  teachers  of  our  holy  religion,  they  began 
to  clear  the  land  and  build  a  log  house.  They 
labored  under  great  inconveniences,  as  must  be 
supposed.  Their  oxen  were  but  half-tamed,  their 
tools  few  and  needing  to  be  put  in  order,  and  their 
best  shelter,  after  the  fatigue  of  the  day,  was  a  can- 
vas tent.  To  add  to  their  trials,  a  violent  storm  of 
wind  and  rain  visited  them  in  the  midst  of  their 
labor,  wetting  their  effects  and  flooding  their 
works.  But  all  this  they  submitted  to  patiently, 
and  in  a  few  weeks  their  tabernacle  in  this  wilder- 
ness was  set  up  in  the  name  of  the  great  God,  whom 
this  dark  corner  of  the  earth  had  never  known,  and 
was  so  far  completed  as  to  shelter  them  from  the 
approaching  rainy  season.  It  was,  doubtless,  to 
eyes  accustomed  to  look  upon  the  elegant  man- 
sions of  civilized  society,  but  a  rude  hut.  Its  di- 
mensions were  thirty  feet  in  length  and  twenty  feet 
in  width,  separated  into  two  rooms  by  a  partition 
in  the  middle.     Rough  doors  split  from  the  logs 


268      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

and  hung  on  wooden  hinges,  a  plank  floor,  a  chim- 
ney made  of  sticks  and  lined  with  clay,  and  four 
windows,  the  sashes  made  in  part  with  a  jack- 
knife,  constituted  its  finishing.  Its  furniture  con- 
sisted of  a  chair,  a  table,  and  stools,  all  of  domestic 
manufacture.  Their  cows  afforded  them  milk,  and 
to  the  provisions  of  their  outfit  were  added  a  little 
flour  from  Vancouver,  and  occasionally  game  from 
the  Indians.  Thus  provided,  they  commenced 
clearing  the  land  to  plant  for  their  future  suste- 
nance, to  teach  the  natives,  and  preach  to  the  emi- 
grants, as  opportunities  were  presented. 

The  Methodist  missionaries  who  went  to  Ore- 
gon in  1834  had  much  to  do  in  determining  the 
question  of  Oregon's  entering  into  the  national 
domain.  In  1846  the  slogan  of  the  Democratic 
party,  when  Mr.  Polk  ran  upon  that  ticket,  was 
"54  degrees  40  minutes,  or  fight."  The  treaty  be- 
tween Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  fixed 
the  49th  degree  of  north  latitude  as  our  boundary. 
But  we  probably  should  not  have  obtained  even 
that  if  Oregon  had  not  been  in  possession  by  the 
emigrations  induced  to  seek  Oregon  because  the 
Methodists  had  pioneered  the  way. 


Ttorri  fetiai. 

Reconstruction. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

IN  asking  a  year's  absence  from  the  Oregon  Con- 
ference, the  chief  object  was,  that  I  might  put  in 
some  work  for  the  Boys  in  Blue  at  the  front.  I 
should  have  been  in  the  service  of  the  country  as  a 
soldier,  only  that  I  was  so  situated  that  I  could  not 
well  leave  the  work  placed  upon  me  by  my  election 
as  editor  of  a  religious  paper  in  a  new  and  distant 
part  of  the  country,  however  strong  my  inclination 
might  have  been,  without  unfaithfulness  to  a  trust 
which  had  been  accepted  by  me. 

When  mv  nine  years  of  service  on  the  Pacific 
Christian  Advocate  were  up,  I  declined  a  re-election. 
I  placed  my  wife  and  our  adopted  daughter  at  a 
friend's  in  Madison,  New  York,  and  made  my  way 
to  City  Point,  in  Virginia,  in  January  following, 
as  a  delegate  of  the  Christian  Commission.  The 
Sanitary  Commission  and  the  Christian  Commis- 
sion were  kindred  voluntary  associations  for  help- 
ing the  soldiers  in  the  field.  The  former  supplied 
the  soldiers  with  proper  physical  care  and  pro- 
vision, thus  supplementing  the  army  rations  with 
delicacies  and  comforts,  especially  in  the  time  of 
military  engagements,  and  then  furnishing  nursing 
and  care  to  the  sick  and  wounded  soldiers.  The 
latter  also  applied  physical  nursing  and  care  to  the 
sick  and  wounded  men  at  the  front,  and  added  to 
these  physical  ministrations  those  of  a  moral  and 
spiritual  character.    While  the  country  was  heavily 

271 


272     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

taxed  for  the  war  expenses,  the  people  of  the 
United  States  could  not  resist  the  patriotic  and 
philanthropic  impulse  to  send  additional  provisions 
and  help  to  the  Union  soldiers.  In  this  behalf,  ten 
millions  of  dollars  were  contributed  by  each  of  these 
benevolent  associations  to  this  humane  purpose,  by 
means  of  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  co-operating 
in  this  behalf.  The  Christian  Commission  raised 
as  much  in  their  work  for  the  moral  and  spiritual 
welfare  and  comfort  of  the  Union  soldiers. 

The  two  months  I  spent  as  a  delegate  of  the 
Christian  Commission,  while  involving  some  hard- 
ships and  discomforts,  nevertheless  yielded  a  rich 
compensation.  I  preached  to  soldiers  two  or  three 
evenings  each  week,  and  on  Sundays  once  or  twice 
each  Sunday.  Many  of  them  heard  their  last  ser- 
mon on  earth  from  my  lips.  Some  of  the  incidents 
were  of  thrilling  interest,  and  all  of  them  were  sadly 
enjoyable.  The  reader  will  share  somewhat  in  the 
pleasure  I  found  in  ministering  to  my  fellow- 
patriots  in  their  suffering  and  sore  need  on  the  field, 
in  the  amputating-room,  and  in  the  hospital,  by 
re-traversing  the  service  as  here  outlined,  or  by  my 
adducing  of  excerpta  from  my  daily  memoranda 
of  those  weeks  and  months  of  this  voluntary  service. 

General  Grant  extended  his  left  line  some  three 
or  four  miles  to  Hatcher's  Run.  This  was  some 
five  or  six  miles  up  the  railroad  from  City  Point. 
Several  of  us  went  up  the  first  day  of  the  engage- 
ment, and  stopped  at  the  railroad  station  there,  to 
attend  upon  some  soldiers  who  had  been  wounded 
in  the  battle,  and  brought  down  from  the  lines  in 


WOUNDED  SOLDIERS.  273 

ambulances  to  be  placed  in  cars,  if  able  to  endure 
the  trip,  and  to  be  transported  by  rail  to  City  Point 
hospital.  Those  unable  to  endure  transportation 
were  to  remain  in  tents  for  treatment,  as  their  con- 
dition might  seem  to  require.  It  was  a  stinging 
cold  February  night.  The  wounded  boys  had  been 
temporarily  treated,  and  sent  down  to  the  railroad. 
We  gave  them  hot  coffee  and  nourishing  food,  and 
placed  them  in  the  cars.  1  carried  one  bright 
young  lad,  and  laid  him  gently  in  the  car  upon 
straw  provided  for  the  purpose.  After  laying  him 
down,  I  saw  in  his  overcoat  breast-pocket  a  small 
Bible.  Said  I,  "Soldier,  may  I  look  at  your  book?" 
He  nodded  consent.  I  opened  the  Bible,  and  read 
the  name  inserted  on  the  fly-leaf.  The  inscription 
ran :  "To  my  dear  son,  Edward ,  from  his  lov- 
ing mother:  My  son,  make  this  book  the  guide  of 
your  daily  life."  I  said  to  him,  "Have  you  complied 
with  your  mother's  request?"  "O  yes,"  was  the 
reply.  "Do  you  love  this  blessed  Book?"  He  said, 
"Yes,  indeed."  "Do  you  love  the  Lord?"  He 
made  answer:  "Yes,  I  do.  He  has  been  with  me 
every  day  since  I  left  home  and  came  into  the  army. 
The  Lord  is  very  good,  indeed,  to  me.  He  has 
never  forsaken  me." 

I  found  a  man  in  the  ambulance  awaiting  some 
one  or  more  to  carry  him  to  the  car.  He  had  been 
severely  wounded.  He  had  lost  much  blood,  and 
he  was  suffering  very  greatly.  I  felt  his  pulse.  It 
was  quite  weak,  denoting  prostration.  I  gave  him 
some  hot  coffee,  and  put  some  cordial  tonic  into 
it,  hoping  to  rally  and  revive  him  before  he  should 
18 


274     SIXTY- ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

be  put  into  the  car.  He  was  an  Irishman.  He  in- 
quired, "Is  it  a  chaplain  yees  are?"  "O  no  !"  said  I ; 
"I  am  a  minister,  and  I  came  down  in  the  service 
of  the  Christian  Commission  to  the  field,  to  help 
you  in  your  need,  and  to  show  you  that  you  are 
not  forgotten  nor  neglected  by  us."  "Well !  well !" 
said  he;  "I  don't  know  much  about  that  society; 
but  I  do  say  from  my  heart,  God  bless  all  the  likes 
o'  yees."     I  heard  of  another  Irishman  who  was 

dying,  and  Dr.  M told  him  of  Jesus  and  his 

love,  and  prayed  for  him  in  his  last  moments.  He 
gave  him  his  blessing  in  this  form:  "May  God 
Almighty  bliss  ye  and  kape  ye,  and  whin  ye  die  may 
ivery  blissed  hair  iv  your  head  be  a  lighted  candle 
to  light  your  soul  through  purgatory !" 

After  the  cars  were  filled  and  the  train  had 
started,  I  went  into  one  of  the  tents.  A  soldier  was 
just  brought  in,  who  was  shot  in  the  neck.  He  was 
unconscious.  I  assisted  in  holding  him  up  in  the 
cot  until  they  could  get  off  his  clothes  to  examine 
his  wounds.  The  tent  was  quite  warm;  the  smell 
of  the  blood  and  the  grasp  of  my  hand  by  the  suf- 
ferer overcame  me.  I  called  an  orderly  to  take 
my  place,  and  went  out  into  the  cold  and  lay  down 
upon  my  back  to  prevent  fainting  away.  I  recov- 
ered, and  resumed  the  service  for  several  hours, 
going  from  tent  to  tent  and  from  ambulance  to 
ambulance,  to  render  help  as  needed.  The  next 
day  I  went  up  to  the  battle-field.  I  took  my  place 
in  the  rear  of  the  lines,  to  assist  with  stretchers 
to  carry  wounded  men  to  ambulances,  to  be  thus 
conveyed  to  the  field  hospital.     The  bullets  sang 


IN  THE  FIELD   HOSPITAL.  275 

in  the  trees  above  me,  and  the  leaves  clipped  by  the 
shots  were  all  the  time  falling. 

In  the  afternoon  I  was  assigned  to  duty  at  the 
field  hospital.  We  were  very  busy  carrying 
wounded  men  on  stretchers  into  and  from  the  hos- 
pital. One  noble  young  man,  a  colonel,  had  been 
struck  on  the  knee  by  an  exploding  shell,  shatter- 
ing the  knee.  His  limb  required  amputation  well 
up  towards  the  thigh.  His  leg  was  taken  off,  and 
he  was  placed  on  a  stretcher,  and  carried  upon  it 
six  or  seven  miles  to  the  general  hospital  at  the 
Point  by  relays  of,  carriers.  The  case  was  pathetic. 
His  term  of  enlistment  had  expired  the  day  before. 
Some  days  after  this  I  went  into  the  hospital  at 
City  Point.  His  wound  had  sloughed.  The  artery 
had  lost  the  ligature.  The  limb  had  been  again 
cut  off  higher  up,  and  again  it  had  sloughed.  The 
orderly  was  holding  the  artery  closed  by  his  thumb. 
The  soldier  was  delirious.  He  was  muttering  tus 
commands.  After  holding  the  artery  for  some 
time,  the  surgeon  said,  "Let  go."  In  a  very  few 
minutes  he  had  passed  away. 

In  the  field  hospital  at  the  close  of  the  day 
there  was  a  large  and  ghastly  pile  of  dismembered 
legs  and  arms  to  be  seen.  The  field  hospital  was  an 
old-fashioned  Viriginia  house,  with  a  large  hall  in 
the  center,  and  on  one  side  the  hall  was  the  parlor, 
converted  into  an  operating-room.  Over  the  man- 
tel was  an  engraving  oi  Bishop  Porteus's  "Court 
of  Death."  The  floor  was  slippery  with  human 
blood,  and  that  picture  was  in  keeping  with  the 
gory  scene  of  the  amputating-room.    On  the  other 


276     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

side  of  the  hall  was  the  residence  room.  At  each 
end  of  the  house,  and  on  its  outside,  was  the  inevi- 
table chimney.  During  the  day  there  was  a  lull 
in  the  fighting,  and  in  which  no  victims  were 
brought  in.  The  surgeon  had  opened  the  piano, 
which  stood  in  the  hall,  an  old,  decayed  instrument, 
whose  brassy,  tinkling  strings  were  unmusical  and 
discordant.  An  orderly  was  found  who  could  play. 
The  women  of  the  family  were  brought  to  the  door, 
and  treated  to  Union  music.  The  roar  of  the  can- 
non had  become  still.  Behind  the  two  white  wo- 
men were  the  black  women  of  the  place,  as  a  setting 
for  the  picture.  Led  by  the  instrument,  the  boys 
sang,  "John  Brown's  body  lies  a-moldering  in  the 
grave,"  and  "We  '11  hang  Jeff  Davis  on  a  sour 
apple-tree."  "Well,  you  '11  have  to  catch  him  first,,, 
said  one  of  the  angry  women.  I  learned  afterwards 
that  the  reason  for  this  infliction  was  this:  A 
wounded  soldier  lay  in  the  yard,  who  had  been  dis- 
emboweled by  a  shell.  His  dying  agonies  were 
mocked  by  the  woman,  as  having  deserved  and  in- 
curred this  suffering  by  invading  the  sacred  soil  of 
Virginia.  After  this  musical  entertainment  the  sur- 
geon said  he  had  got  even  with  that  inhuman  fe- 
male mocker,  and  he  was  satisfied. 

During  one  of  those  days,  D wight  L.  Moody 
and  I  went  together  into  the  Negro  quarters,  and 
he  conversed  with  some  of  the  colored  women 
awhile.  He  asked  a  Negress,  "Aunty,  do  you  think 
the  lord  Jesus  loves  his  colored  children  as  much 
as  he  does  the  whites?"     After  a  slight  pause,  she 


IN  THE   FIELD   HOSPITAL.  2JJ 

replied,  "Brother,  the  Lord  Jesus  loves  all  his  re- 
deemed children." 

My  main  place  of  work  was  in  the  field  hospital. 
I  had  charge  of  a  ward  of  two  hundred  patients. 
Some  were  suffering  from  wounds,  others  from 
fever  or  pneumonia  or  some  other  ailment.  I  vis- 
ited them  twice  a  day,  and  sometimes  three  times. 
I  conversed  with  them,  wrote  letters  for  them  to 
their  friends,  and  prayed  with  any  of  them  who 
desired  it.  Generally,  the  evening  call  was  the 
most  impressive,  as  usually  the  deaths  occurred 
during  the  night,  and  we  buried  from  two  to  six  or 
eight  each  morning,  burying  them  with  military 
honors. 

One  evening  I  passed  the  cot  of  a  dear  young 
soldier  with  whom  I  had  conversed  freely,  and  who 
had  expressed  himself  as  ready  to  die.  I  had  writ- 
ten for  him  several  times  to  his  parents  and  sisters. 
As  I  was  about  passing  his  cot  he  seemed  sleeping. 
I  laid  my  hand  gently  upon  his  head,  and  let  it  rest 
there  for  some  moments.  He  opened  his  eyes,  and 
fixed  their  large,  expressive  look  upon  me,  and 
said:  "That  was  so  sweet.  I  dreamed  it  was  my 
mother's  hand  upon  my  head."  The  next  morn- 
ing his  cot  was  vacant,  and  I  had  the  sad  duty  of 
committing  his  body  to  the  grave,  "Earth  to  earth, 
ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to  dust."  I  wrote  his  mother 
of  the  safe  and  beautiful  death  of  her  darling  son. 

I  had  a  chat  with  a  gray-haired  Negro  about 
the  war.  Said  I,  "Uncle,  I  hear  it  said  that  you 
colored  folks  do  n't  want  to  be  free;  that  you  would 


278     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

rather  be  slaves  than  be  free."  "Well,"  said  he, 
"massa,  you  shall  tie  up  a  dog  to  a  tree,  and  give 
him  a  long  rope.  He  will  go  this  way  as  far  as  he 
can,  and  then  go  the  other  way  as  far  as  he  can, 
and  then  set  up  a  dreadful  howl.  Now,"  said  he, 
"if  a  dog  feels  that  way  to  be  confined,  how  do  you 
suppose  a  man  would  feel  to  be  a  slave?" 

Chaplain  Hunt  told  me  this  story  about  a  col- 
ored man  early  in  the  war,  before  the  Negroes  had 
been  enlisted  into  the  army.  He  said,  "Uncle,  why 
don't  you  colored  people  fight?"  He  replied,  "O 
massa,  we  's  de  bone."  "Well,  but,"  said  the  chap- 
lain, "why  don't  you  colored  folks  fight?"  He 
responded :  "Masssa,  we  's  de  bone.  You  see  two 
dogs  fighting  over  de  bone;  de  bone  don't  fight." 

I  attended  a  colored  meeting  in  the  24th  Army 
Corps.  It  was  a  very  lively  meeting.  One  person 
had  had  some  difficulty  in  getting  a  chance  to  tell 
his  experience.  He  said:  "I  done  left  my  wife  and 
my  two  offsprings  in  Norfolk,  on  de  oder  side  of 
our  lines.  Byme-by,  when  de  cruel  war  is  ober,  if 
we  should  never  meet  again  on  dis  earth,  we  shall 
meet  in  heaven.  The  city  up  dere  have  four  gates, 
and  if  she  goes  in  at  one  gate,  and  I  go  in  at  an- 
other, it  will  be  all  the  same  as  if  we  bof  went 
through  the  same  gate."  Another  man  expressed 
himself  thus:  "Brudders!  Lub  will  gib  de  debil  de 
lockjaw.  You  think  dat  am  a  queer  saying,  but 
I  will  prove  him.  When  Massa  Jesus  converted  my 
soul,  den  T  prays  to  him,  and  I  said,  'O  Massa 
Jesus,  convert  Massa  Tom,  for  he  used  de  lash  on 
me  heavy  because  I  pray.'    Den  Massa  Tom  he  was 


PASSING   THE  LINES.  279 

converted.  He  say  to  me  in  de  mawning,  'Now, 
Jem,  it  is  time  to  get  up  and  come  in  to  prayers.' 
Befo'  it  was  a  crack  of  de  whip  and  a  bitter  curse ; 
now  de  whip  is  done  gone,  and  Massa  Tom  he 
prays  instead." 

I  once  went  through  Grant's  lines  before  Rich- 
mond without  a  pass.  George  H.  Stuart,  the  presi- 
dent of  our  Christian  Commission,  sent  a  number 
of  Philadelphia  gentlemen  down  to  the  Point,  who 
were  greatly  interested  in  the  work  of  the  Christian 
Commission,  and  they  wished  to  go  through 
Grant's  lines.  Rev.  Erastus  Smith,  the  gentleman 
in  charge  of  our  work  at  the  front,  desired  me  to 
take  the  company  through  the  lines.  But  our 
passes  had  all  been  sent  up  to  General  Ord's  head- 
quarters for  renewal,  and  none  of  us  had  the  pass- 
word. We  entered  the  Christian  Commission  am- 
bulance, which  had  our  name  painted  upon  it  in 
large,  white  letters ;  and  then,  besides,  I  carried  the 
badge  of  all  delegates  of  the  Christian  Commission 
upon  my  right  coat  lapel.  When  we  reached  the 
sentinel  he  demanded  the  password.  I  told  him 
the  situation :  "These  gentlemen  must  go  back  to 
Philadelphia  to-day.  They  are  great  contributors 
to  our  funds,  and  brimming  over  with  loyalty.  You 
see  this  badge,  and  you  see  that  is  the  Christian 
Commission  ambulance."  "Well,"  says  he,  "it  is 
in  violation  of  my  orders."  Said  I,  "Can  not  you 
speak  to  your  chief,  the  officer  in  command?"  He 
did  so,  and  we  went  through  without  interruption. 
He  said,  "You  must  take  the  risk  about  getting 
through  when  you  return,"    When  I  returned  an- 


28o      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

other  sentinel  was  on  guard.  He  refused  to  let  me 
pass,  and  we  could  not  get  through  until  a  messen- 
ger was  sent  to  General  Ord's  quarters.  Then, 
when  I  gave  him  the  password,  we  got  through. 
My  service  in  the  army  was  exceedingly  fasci- 
nating. I  would  not  be  without  it  upon  any  con- 
sideration. I  was  in  only  the  one  battle  I  have  de- 
scribed. War  is  a  dreadful  scourge.  Patriotism 
and  philanthropy  have  large  scope  and  verge  when 
war  lifts  its  horrid  front.  These  virtues  shine  con- 
spicuously on  the  wrinkled  visage  of  bloody  war. 
They  show  that,  dreadful  as  war  is,  it  has  its  offsets 
in  the  charities  which  keep  step  with  the  army,  and 
display  and  dispense  their  divine,  angelic  healing 
and  help  amid  the  shadows  and  bloody  orgies  of 
war.  I  shall  ever  be  thankful  for  the  opportunity 
which  God  gave  me  to  minister  for  him  to  my  fel- 
low-citizens in  the  field  of  strife  and  death.  And  I 
shall  all  the  more  appreciate  the  sterling  patriotism 
displayed,  both  in  the  field  and  by  the  citizenship 
of  the  country  generally,  in  sustaining  the  army. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

THIS  chapter  opens  with  a  new  departure.  My 
transfer  to  East  Tennessee  seems  to  me  quite  as 
providential  as  any  other  part  of  my  checkered  life. 
My  intense  sympathy  with  the  Union  cause  during 
the  war  led  me  greatly  to  admire  the  patriotism 
of  the  people  in  this  Switzerland  of  the  United 
States.  The  heroism  of  the  Waldensians  and  the 
Albigenses  on  the  southern  slopes  of  the  Alps, 
during  centuries  of  bloody  papal  persecution,  al- 
ways kindled  my  liveliest  admiration.  To  them  I 
likened  the  East  Tennesseeans  and  the  Bridge- 
burners,  who  took  this  method  to  impede  the  trans- 
portation of  Confederate  troops  and  munitions  of 
war.  This  they  did  deliberately  and  fearlessly  on 
peril  of  their  lives,  and  at  the  cost  of  their  lives.  I 
have  often  wept  while  reading  the  story  of  their 
intensely  loyal  deeds,  and  the  dreadful  work  they. 
so  bravely,  and  even  cheerfully,  accepted. 

I  decided  that  if  Providence  would  so  direct, 
it  would  give  me  great  pleasure  to  serve  them  as  a 
minister.  I  had  tempting  offers  to  stay  in  Oregon. 
I  was  offered  the  editorship  of  the  Pacific  Christian 
Advocate.  I  was  invited  to  become  the  pastor  of 
Union  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  St.  Louis, 
and  to  re-enter  my  old  Conference,  and  become 
pastor  of  some  of  my  former  charges  there :  Bing- 
hamton,  N.  Y.,  and  Wilkesbarre,  Pa.  I  decided 
to  come  East,  and  get  nearer  the  Hub.     Oregon 

281 


282     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

was  on  the  periphery.  All  my  relatives  and  those 
of  my  wife  were  three  or  four  thousand  miles  away. 
I  could  not  return  to  visit  them,  without  incurring 
several  hundred  dollars'  expenses.  During  the  war 
my  heart  was  with  the  flag  and  the  Union  it  repre- 
sented. I  chafed  under  the  inexorable  conditions 
which  compelled  my  stay  so  far  away  from  the  cen- 
ter of  things.  When  my  eight  years  of  General 
Conference  editorship  on  the  Advocate  were  up,  I 
declined  a  re-election,  as  already  stated,  so  that  I 
might  be  more  nearly  in  the  midst  of  events. 

Coming  East,  many  tempting  offers  were  made 
me.  Bishop  Clark  presided  in  the  Oregon  Confer- 
ence, when,  in  October,  1864,  I  left  on  a  year's 
leave  of  absence,  the  first  object  of  which  was  that 
I  might  put  in  service  in  the  field  as  a  delegate  of 
the  Christian  Commission,  a  purpose  which  I  ex- 
ecuted at  my  own  expense  the  last  two  months  of 
the  war.  Bishop  Clark  expressed  the  hope  that  he 
could  place  me  in  the  South  in  Church  recon- 
struction. Thus  things  were  urged  upon  my  atten- 
tion. I  attended  the  session  of  the  Wyoming  Con- 
ference. The  other  calls  were  not  yet  imminent. 
I  was  readmitted  among  my  earlier  Conference  as- 
sociates where  I  began  my  ministry.  I  took  an 
appointment  in  Binghamton,  where  a  new  and  ele- 
gant church  was  to  be  built  in  one  of  the  last 
charges  I  had  filled  before  going  to  Oregon.  Thus 
and  there  I  wrought  for  six  weeks,  telling  the 
Binghamton  friends  that  my  heart  was  in  the 
South,  and  that  if  the  call  came  I  would  have  to 
obey  it.     Bishop  Clark  wrote  to  me,  inviting  me 


HOLSTON   CONFERENCE  REORGANIZED.        283 

to  accompany  him  in  June  to  East  Tennessee,  from 
which  an  urgent  appeal  had  come  from  a  large 
laymen's  and  ministers'  Convention,  asking  the 
bishops  of  the  dear  old  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  again  to  extend  over  them  their  sheltering 
wing.  I  laid  his  letter  before  my  Official  Board, 
and  obtained  their  approval  of  my  going  and  a 
three  weeks'  leave  of  absence.  They  expressed  the 
hope  that,  however  urgent  the  call  for  my  transfer 
might  be,  I  would  decline  it,  and  return  to  them. 
I  went.  The  spirit  of  the  men  was  contagious. 
Their  story  of  the  sufferings  and  sacrifices  they  had 
endured  for  the  dear  old  flag  set  my  heart  all  aflame 
to  enter  into  their  joy,  and  assist  them  in  their  high 
endeavor.  I  reported  their  experiences  in  the 
Western  Christian  Advocate  within  a  few  days  after 
they  had  so  feelingly  rehearsed  it  in  the  Conference 
love-feast.  This  report  I  here  insert.  I  am  sure 
this  history  will  give  my  readers  great  pleasure,  and 
I  therefore  insert  it  in  full. 

ORGANIZATION    OF   THE    HOLSTON   CONFERENCE 
OF  THE  METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH. 

Athens,  East  Tennessee,  June  /,  1865. 

An  eventful  day  for  East  Tennessee  is  this  first 
day  of  June,  in  the  year  of  grace  1865.  It  was 
scarcely  less  so  when  the  loyal  East  Tennessee  Meth- 
odists met  in  Convention  at  Knoxville,  on  the  7th  and 
8th  days  of  July,  and  determined  to  separate  them- 
selves from  a  Church  which  had  been  the  apologists 
and  defenders  of  slavery,  and  the  fomenters  and  sup- 
porters of  treason,  secession,  and  rebellion,  and  con- 


284     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

nect  themselves  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
which  had  always  stood  loyally  by  the  Government 
of  the  United  States,  and  which  had  also  been  that 
of  their  early  choice,  and  upon  which  God  had  con- 
tinued to  put  honor.  A  large  audience  assembled 
to-day  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  at  Athens, 
East  Tennessee,  at  nine  o'clock.  Rev.  Bishop  Clark 
opened  the  services  by  reading  the  one  hundred  and 
twenty-sixth  Psalm  and  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  St. 
John's  Gospel.     The  hymn 

"And  are  we  yet  alive?" 

was  sung,  after  which  prayer  was  offered  by  the 
bishop.     The  hymn, 

"  How  beauteous  are  their  feet," 

was  sung,  and  Rev.  James  Cummings  and  Dr.  Adam 
Poe  addressed  the  Throne  of  Grace. . 

Bishop  Clark  then  remarked  in  substance : 

"Beloved  Brethren, — I  am  not  insensible  of 
the  responsibilities  of  this  hour,  nor  of  the  solemnity 
of  the  occasion  that  has  called  us  together.  Indulge 
me  for  a  few  moments  in  reference  to  sundry  matters, 
that  we  may  more  fully  understand  ourselves,  our  re- 
lation to  the  work  before  us,  and  the  work  we  have 
to  do.  On  referring  to  the  records  of  the  Church, 
I  find  that  the  Holston  Conference  was  organized  in 
the  year  1824,  with  a  membership  of  fourteen  thou- 
sand nine  hundred  and  thirty-four,  and  forty-one  min- 
isters. From  that  time  forth  there  was  a  gradual 
increase  of  members,  till,  in  1840,  there  was  a  mem- 
bership of  forty  thousand  and  sixty-three,  and  a  min- 
istry of  seventy-three.  Twenty  years  ago  the  last 
entry  in  the  Minutes  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  of  the  Holston  Conference  was  made.     But, 


bishop  clark's  opening  talk.  2S5 

since  that  time,  what  scenes  have  transpired!     The 
division  of  the  Church,  or,  rather,  the  separation  of 
a  large  number  of  its  members  from  its  communion. 
Strange   coincidences,   or   rather   providences,   some- 
times occur.     I  see  that  twenty  years  ago,  according 
to  those  Minutes,  the  Holston  Conference  was  to  have 
assembled  in  this  place.     Before  the  time  arrived  the 
separation  had  occurred.     But  here,  in  the  very  place 
where   it  disappeared,  we  meet  to   reorganize   it.     I 
do  not  know  whether  it  was  designed   [a  voice:  "It 
was"]  ;  but  the  coincidence  is  marked.     I  remember 
with  what  reluctance  the  old  Holston  Conference  went 
out  of  the  old  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  ;  how  tena- 
cious the  Quarterly  Conferences  were  for  adhering. 
And,  in  connection  with  this,  let  me  say,  that  not  only 
the  whole  Methodist  Church,  but  the  whole  country, 
has  had  its  eye  upon  East  Tennessee.     Your  love  of 
country  was  well  in  harmony  with  your  love  of  the 
old  Church.     And  we  felt  deeply  that  it  was  not  in 
the  power  of  the  Government  to  afford  you  the  pro- 
tection you  needed,  and  that  you   suffered  so  much 
from  your  devotion.     But,  thanks  be  to  God,  deliver- 
ance came  to  the  Nation,  and  I  trust  deliverance  will 
come  also   to  the   Church,   and,   as  you   have  taken 
your  place  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  that  you  will 
also  take  your  place  under  the  old   banners  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.     [A  voice :  "We  will."] 
"Why  am  I  here  at  this  hour?     Last  year,  after 
our    General    Conference    was    held,    a    Convention, 
largely  representing  your  laity  and  ministry,  was  held 
at  Knoxville,  and  there  and  then  you  announced  the 
purpose    to    reunite    with    the    Methodist    Episcopal 
Church,  and  invoked  our  aid.     During  the  last  year 
we  have  done  what  we  could  to  aid  you  in  your  work, 
and  I  am  here  to  organize  your  Conference. 

"I  touch  upon  a  point  which  I  had  not  intended 


286      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK'. 

to  name ;  but  it  seems  proper,  from  facts  which 
have  come  to  my  knowledge,  with  regard  to  this 
organization.  The  question  has  been  asked,  'Why 
reorganize?'  The  plan  that  has  been  suggested  is 
that  it  would  be  better  to  leave  the  Southern  Church 
territory  undisturbed.  Let  us  leave  this  gro.und  un- 
touched, and  hold  a  General  Conference  of  both 
Churches,  and  reunite  the  Church  South,  by  a  simple 
act,  to  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  I  do  not 
say  the  proposition  has  been  made  in  a  formal  man- 
ner ;  for  no  Conferences  have  been  held  in  the  South- 
ern Church  to  make  it ;  but  it  has  been  made  by  prom- 
inent members  and  ministers  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,  South,  with  singular  concurrence  and 
unanimity. 

"I  cite  one  reason  why  I  think  this  proposition, 
that  we  should  stay  out  of  the  South,  can  not  be  enter- 
tained. If  we  refuse  to  respond  to  these  calls  from 
East  Tennessee  and  elsewhere — for  the  calls  are  from 
different  parts  of  the  South — the  effect  would  be  to 
leave  to  the  men,  who  have  not  been  with  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  in  its  fearful  struggle 
against  rebellion,  the  work  of  reorganization  of  the 
Church.  Now,  if  there  is  any  class  of  men  in  the 
South  who  should  take  part  in  the  rebuilding  of  the 
Church  and  the  State,  it  is  the  loyal  portion.  I  do 
not  feel  that  we  should  subject  them  to  this  depri- 
vation. 

"The  division  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
had  one  single  ground,  and  that  was  slavery.  You 
can  not  find  any  other.  No  man  under  heaven  can 
find  any  other.  We  preach  the  same  gospel,  have  the 
same  organization  of  Conferences  and  districts  and 
circuits,  and  the  same  allotments  of  labor,  and  no 
man  on  the  face  of  the  earth  can  fasten  upon  any 
other  fact  than  slavery,  and  that  is  being  taken  out 


REASONS  FOR  REORGANIZATION.  287 

of  the  way.  What  reason,  then,  is  there  for  keeping 
apart  ?  There  is  none.  I  can  conceive  of  no  other 
than  pride  of  position ;  pride  of  place  and  power ;  the 
maintaining  of  power  in  hands  that  have  wielded 
it,  other  than  for  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the 
Government. 

"Why,  again,  am  I  here  to  organize  the  Holston 
Conference?  At  our  last  General  Conference,  held  in 
May,  1864,  provision  was  made  especially  for  the  re- 
ception of  ministers  of  the  Church  South  into  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  It  was  provided  that 
they  should  be  received  on  the  same  conditions  as 
those  on  which  we  receive  those  from  the  British  and 
Canadian  Wesleyan  Conferences,  with  the  proviso 
that  they  should  give  assurances  of  their  loyalty  to 
the  United  States,  and  of  their  agreement  with  us  on 
the  subject  of  slavery.  The  old  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  has  been,  all  through  this  struggle,  loyal  to 
the  United  States.  All  her  influences  have  been  un- 
mistakably in  this  direction.  Conferences,  ministers, 
and  members,  almost  without  exception,  have  all  cast 
their  influence  on  the  side  of  the  Government.  And 
it  was  the  purpose  that,  in  the  reorganization  and  ex- 
tension of  the  Church,  as  we  foresaw  its  extension, 
no  element  should  enter  into  the  Church  that  should 
disturb  its  harmony  on  the  question  of  slavery,  or  of 
loyalty  to  the  Government.  We  have  no  doubt  that 
thousands,  all  through  the  South,  have  been  led  into 
this  rebellion  by  the  influences,  well-nigh  irresistible, 
thrown  around  them,  and  that,  perhaps,  tens  of  thou- 
sands have  been  led  into  it  conscientiously.  But  I 
believe  that,  with  the  dawning  of  the  signs  of  the 
times,  there  must  come  a  conviction  that  they  were 
mistaken,  were  in  the  wrong,  and,  with  that  con- 
viction, if  they  are  good  men  and  true  men,  that  they 
will  be  with  us  in  these  matters  of  loyalty  and  slavery. 


288     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

And  I  can  not  see  any  other  reason  for  their  remain- 
ing aloof  from  our  Church,  unless  it  be  the  want  of 
loyalty,  or  adhesion  to  a  system  now  nearly  defunct. 

"In  addition  to  the  provisions  for  receiving  min- 
isters, the  General  Conference  authorized  the  organ- 
ization of  Conferences  in  the  South,  when,  in  the 
judgment  of  the  bishops,  they  should  deem  it  im- 
portant or  proper;  and  at  a  meeting  of  the  bishops 
they  saw  that  the  time  had  fully  come  to  organize 
a  Conference  in  East  Tennessee. 

"In  pursuance  of  these  facts  I  am  here.  I  recog- 
nize the  following  ministers  as  comprising  the  Holston 
Annual  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church :  W.  C.  Daily,  G.  A.  Gowan,  R.  H.  Guthrie, 
transferred  from  the  Kentucky  Conference ;  T.  S. 
Stivers,  transferred  from  the  Ohio  Conference; 
Thomas  H.  Pearne,  transferred  from  the  Oregon  Con- 
ference;  and  J.  F.  Spence,  transferred  from  the  Cin- 
cinnati Conference." 

The  bishop  then  announced  that,  in  determining 
the  status  of  the  ministers  applying  for  admission,  he 
should  take  as  his  guide  the  published  Minutes  of 
the  Holston  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Church, 
South,  for  1862.  Since  then  no  Minutes  had  been 
published,  nor  had  any  session  of  the  Conference  been 
held,  other  than  a  gathering  of  the  treasonable  por- 
tion of  it  within  the  rebel  lines. 

Profound  interest  and  considerable  sensibility  were 
manifested  during  the  address  of  the  bishop.  Brother 
Spence,  at  the  request  of  the  bishop,  acted  as  tem- 
porary secretary. 

The  following  brethren  were  severally  admitted  by 
the  vote  of  the  Conference,  each  one  making  a  state- 
ment, as  his  name  was  presented,  of  his  agreement 
with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  as  to  loyalty 


PREACHERS  ADMITTED.  289 

and  slavery;  namely,  E.  Rowley,  James  Cumming, 
James  A.  Hyden,  W.  H.  Rogers,  John  W.  Mann, 
W.  C.  Graves,  W.  H.  Duggan,  William  Milburn,  J.  L. 
Mann,  R.  G.  Blackburn,  T.  H.  Russel,  J.  B.  Little, 
Andrew  J.  Greer,  and  John  Alley. 

Dr.  E.  Rowley  said  he  had  been  a  slaveholder; 
did  not  consider  himself  so  now;  regarded  slavery 
as  removed  by  the  war,  and  accepted  the  fact  as  a 
blessing  for  the  whites,  whatever  its  effect  might  be 
on  the  blacks. 

J.  Albert  Hyden  said  that  he  had  been  educated 
to  believe  that  slavery  was  religiously  right;  on  that 
subject  he  gave  himself  no  uneasiness  or  trouble;  but 
that  he  had  come  to  see  differently.  He  believed, 
with  the  former  speaker,  that  the  removal  of  slavery 
would  be  a  great  blessing,  the  greatest  blessing  since 
the  gift  of  Christ,  to  us  and  to  our  children's  children. 
Let  slavery  go.  He  was  never  suspected  of  being 
loyal  to  the  Confederacy.  He  remained  quiet  during 
the  rebellion,  and,  as  soon  as  practicable,  he  went  into 
the  service  of  God  and  his  country  as  a  chaplain. 

W.  H.  Rogers  said:  "It  may  have  been  my  mis- 
fortune that  I  never  was  a  slaveholder.  I  was  taught 
to  hate  the  institution  of  slavery.  In  1828  I  joined 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  When  the  question 
of  secession  came  up,  my  mind  was  made  up  at  once. 
I  was  among  the  first  in  East  Tennessee  to  put  my 
name  to  a  card  in  favor  of  allegiance  to  the  Govern- 
ment. A  few  months  afterward,  nine  gentlemen, 
fully  armed,  came  to  my  house.  One  of  them,  a 
young  man,  said,  'I  presume  you  will  take  the  oath?' 
I  replied, 'You  presume  too  much.  What  oath?'  He 
answered,  'That  of  allegiance  to  the  Confederacy/  I 
replied, 'No  sir  !  I  do  n't  "cuss."  '  I  was  taken  to  Knox- 
ville,  and  thence  to  all  the  Southern  prisons ;  was  in 
19 


290     SIXTY-ONE   YEARS  OF  ITINERANT  WORK. 

the  penitentiary.  I  had  heard  of  the  palaces  of  the 
South.  I  did  not  find  them  palaces  except  in  the  sense 
of  the  poet : 

'Prisons  would  palaces  prove, 
If  Jesus  would  dwell  with  rue  there.' 

I  had  an  opportunity  'to  preach'  Christ  'to  the  spirits 
in  prison' — the  Union  soldiers  imprisoned.  Many  of 
them  were  converted.  I  closed  their  eyes  in  death, 
and  they  took  their  flight  from  prisons  to  the  palaces 
of  light  and  glory.  They  went  home.  I  returned, 
and,  when  put  on  trial  before  an  ecclesiastical  court, 
adhered  to  my  loyalty." 

John  W.  Mann  said :  "I  am  ready  and  willing  to 
take  a  place  among  you.  As  far  as  slavery  is  con- 
cerned, my  skirts  are  clear.  I  never  owned  a  Negro. 
My  wife  owned  one  or  two,  but  they  were  sacrificed 
on  the  altar  of  my  country.  I  was  arrested  in  this 
town,  and  required  to  take  the  oath  or  go  to  prison. 
Through  the  entreaties  of  my  wife,  I  reluctantly  took 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  bogus  Confederacy.  I 
was  called  'Lincoln'  in  this  town ;  was  proscribed  and 
persecuted.  I  left  here,  and  since  then  have  preached 
Mn  Louisville  one  year ;  afterward,  in  Kentucky,  Ohio, 
and  Indiana." 

A  venerable  brother,  William  Milburn,  remarked : 
"I  was  never  connected  with  slavery ;  was  not  raised 
up  to  believe  it  was  right ;  was  taught,  from  boyhood, 
to  believe  it  was  wrong;  there  never  was  an  hour  in 
which  I  approved  it ;  I  do  n't  expect  there  ever  will 
be.  Have  tried  to  be  loyal  to  God  and  loyal  to  my 
Government ;  I  have  suffered  much  for  my  loyalty ; 
was  three  times  arrested  by  the  authorities  of  the 
would-be  Confederacy;  I  have  had  a  saber  presented 
to  my  throat,  and,  with  oaths,  have  been  required 
to  take  the  oath.     I  said  to  the  youth  who  made  the 


WHAT  THE  PREACHERS  SAID.  29 1 

demand,  'Young  man,  your  mother  has  taught  you 
better  than  this/  I  was  trotted  off,  lame  as  I  was,  to 
Greensboro.  My  guard  all  sleeping,  at  about  one 
o'clock  I  arose,  slipped  off,  and  moved  homeward, 
and  at  daylight  found  myself  five  miles  from  my 
prison.  I  had  to  remain  concealed  until  John  Morgan 
was  killed.  I  united  with  the  army,  and  have  been 
with  it  ever  since.  I  was  ordained  a  deacon  by  Bishop 
Roberts,  and  an  elder  by  Bishop  Morris.  I  love  the 
Church  next  to  my  life.  I  was  arrested  four  times 
by  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  for  my 
loyalty ;  but  they  always  had  to  write,  'We  find  noth- 
ing immoral  against  him.'  I  understand  that  I  was 
expelled  by  the  Abingdon  Conference  for  my  loyalty. 
I  would  sooner  live  and  die  out  of  the  Church,  and 
be  unburied,  than  to  be  in  connection  with  the  Church 
South.  But  for  the  clergy  of  the  Church  South  this 
rebellion  could  never  have  occurred.  The  power  of 
politicians  was  comparatively  circumscribed;  but  when 
the  clergy  undertook,  in  co-operation  with  them,  to 
rend  the  Nation,  an  influence  was  wielded  which 
reached  to  every  hamlet  and  fireside.  I  would  rather 
have  the  artillery  of  a  Bonaparte  and  the  guns  of  a 
Wellington  directed  upon  me  than  the  groans  and  tears 
of  the  widows  and  orphans  which  have  been  caused 
by  the  influence  of  those  preachers.  I  want  to  live 
in  this  Conference  and  to  die  here ;  and  I  shall  do  so, 
unless  an  element  of  treason  gets  into  it  with  which 
I  can  not,  and  will  not,  associate  myself.  I  can  not 
describe  my  feelings  when  I  first  saw,  in  a  gap  of 
the  mountains,  the  honored  flag  of  my  country  .  Have 
been  forty-one  years  a  member  of  the  Church.  " 

J.  N.  S.  Huffaker  said  he  had  been  a  Union  man 
until  it  seemed  that  secession  was  an  accomplished 
fact.  The  State  had  gone  out,  and  it  looked  as  though 
the  Confederacy  were  established.    He  had  then  taken 


292      SIXTY- ONE    )EARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

the  oath  of  allegiance.  In  this  view  and  course  he 
was  mistaken.  But  when  the  Federal  Government 
afforded  protection  to  loyal  men,  he  went  to  head- 
quarters at  Knoxville,  and  stated  his  desire  to  be  a 
loyal  man,  no  oath  being  required ;  that,  as  soon  as 
it  was  required,  he  took  the  amnesty  oath.  He  was 
a  conservative  man,  was  opposed  to  the  proceedings 
of  the  Holston  Conference  of  1862  touching  the  re- 
bellion. He  believed  the  organization  of  the  Holston 
Conference  of  the  Church  South  would  be  required, 
by  the  force  of  public  opinion,  to  disband. 

J.  L.  Mann  said :  "It  was  my  fortune  or  misfortune 
to  be  born  in  Tennessee.  I  was  reared  among  all  the 
influences  of  Negro  slavery,  and  efforts  were  made  to 
make  me  believe  it  was  right.  But  I  have  ever  been 
an  original,  unmitigated,  simon-pure  Abolitionist. 
I  consider  it  my  misfortune  that  I  was  ever  con- 
nected with  the  Church  South.  I  joined  this  Confer- 
ence in  i860,  at  the  brewing  of  the  rebellion.  I  re- 
mained in  the  northeast  corner  of  the  State  two  years. 
The  Conference  of  1862  was  not  a  Conference;  it  was 
a  political  inquisition  presided  over  by  that  embodi- 
ment of  treason,  Bishop  Early.  I  found  it  was  too 
hot  for  me.  I  went  to  the  Federal  army.  I  took  my 
saddlebags,  and  went  to  the  Federal  army,  and  for 
sixteen  months  I  served  God  and  my  country  in 
the  army." 

R.  G.  Blackburn  said:  "I  was  a  member  of  the 
Holston  Conference.  My  heart  is  with  this  move- 
ment, and  it  has  been  from  the  beginning.  As  this  is 
my  country,  and  where  I  have  been  between  the 
gates,  I  may  perhaps  say,  that  I  took  the  stand 
that  politics  and  religion  should  be  separate,  and  that 
it  was  not  the  business  of  a  Conference  to  inquire 
into  a  man's  sentiments,  and  certainly  not  to  require 
him  to  support  or  favor  a  disloyal  organization.     I 


CONFERENCE  PROCEEDINGS.  293 

regard  it  as  the  duty  of  every  Methodist  in  this 
country  to  give  a  hearty  support  to  this  movement. 
I  regard  it  as  the  blackest  treason  to  attempt  to  keep 
up  the  Methodist  Church,  South,  in  this  country.  Re- 
bellion has  been  crushed ;  but  to  keep  up  another 
Methodist  organization  like  that  of  the  Church  South, 
it  is  in  danger  of  rising  again,  and  efforts  would  be 
made  to  divide  the  country.  And,  if  we  expect  to  re- 
main one  people,  we  must  have  one  Church  in  this 
country." 

Some  of  the  speeches,  which  differed  little  from 
those  given,  are  omitted  for  want  of  room.  T.  H. 
Russel,  J.  B.  Little,  John  Alley,  made  similar  state- 
ments, and  were  received. 

This  occupied  the  forenoon  session,  constituting 
one  of  the  most  interesting  meetings  I  ever  attended. 
Tears  and  sobs,  shouts  and  responses,  were  inter- 
mingled with  the  exercises. 

In  the  afternoon,  fast-day  services  were  held  in 
the  Church,  Bishop  Clark  and  Rev.  T.  H.  Pearne 
making  addresses.    A  large  audience  was  present. 

SECOND  DAY'S  PROCEEDINGS. 

Conference  was  opened  with  the  usual  services, 
conducted  by  Brother  Hyden.  P.  H.  Read,  Augustus 
F.  Shannon,  S.  D.  Gaines,  E.  E.  Gillenwater,  Samuel 
B.  Harwell,  and  David  Fleming  were  received  from 
the  Church  South.  H.  B.  Burkitt,  a  probationer  of 
the  Kentucky  Conference,  was  transferred  by  the 
bishop.  Brothers  G.  M.  Hicks,  T.  S.  Walker,  T.  P. 
Rutherford,  Joseph  P.  Milburn,  and  John  Forrester, 
probationers  in  the  Holston  Conference  of  the  Church 
South,  were  received.  Joseph  Milburn,  a  located 
elder,  was  recognized  and  readmitted.  Pending  the 
reception  of  several,  a  warm  discussion  arose  touch- 
ing the  loyalty  of  applicants,  the  Conference  carefully 


294      ST  XT  V- ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

guarding  against  admitting  those  who  had  been  active 
c  iders  of  rebellion,  and  receiving  those  who  had  taken 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Confederacy  only  upon 
full  confession  and  promises  of  amendment. 

Chaplains  Drake,  Bowdish,  and  Black,  and 
Brother  Webb,  of  the  Minnesota  Conference,  and 
Rev.  Dr.  Poe,  were  here  introduced  to  the  Confer- 
ence. 

SATURDAY'S  PROCEEDINGS. 

These  were  opened  with  customary  exercises,  con- 
ducted by  W.  C.  Graves.  The  session  was  occupied 
in  the  work  of  examining  candidates  for  admission 
into  full  connection,  and  answering  the  questions, 
''Who  are  admitted  on  trial?  Who  remain  on  trial? 
Who  are  the  deacons  ?    Who  are  the  elders  ?" 

The  following  series  of  resolutions,  touching  the 
principles  to  govern  the  Conference  in  admitting  per- 
sons to  the  Conference  who  had  been  tainted  with 
disloyalty,  was  adopted : 

Whereas,  It  is  expected  by  the  loyal  Methodists  of  the 
South,  and  especially  of  East  Tennessee,  that  in  the  reorgan- 
ization of  the  Holston  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  strict  inquiry  will  be  made  touching  the 
opinions  concerning,  and  relations  to,  the  late  rebellion,  of 
applicants  for  admission  and  recognition  as  accredited  min- 
isters, and  that  said  opinions  and  relations  will  shape,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  our  official  action  in  these  cases;  we 
therefore  deem  it  necessary  to  state  briefly  the  general  prin- 
ciples controlling  us  in  the  premises;  therefore, 

Resolved,  i.  That  it  is  the  sense  of  this  body  that  those  who 
entered  into  the  late  rebellion,  and  imbibed  the  spirit  thereof, 
are  guilty  of  a  crime  sufficient  to  exclude  them  from  the  king- 
dom of  grace  and  glory,  and  must  not  be  admitted  into  this 
Conference,  save  upon  full  confession  and  thorough  repent- 
ance. 

Resolved,  2.  That  those  ministers  who  abandoned  their 
work  and  their  homes,  and  absconded  the  country  upon  the 
approach  of  the  national  flag,  have  so  far  forfeited  claim  to 


CONFERENCE  REPORTS.  295 

our  confidence  and  Christian  fellowship,  that  they  should  not 
be  recognized  by  members  of  this  Conference  as  accredited 
ministers  till  they  shall  have  been  restored  by  the  proper 
authorities  of  the  Church. 

Resolved,  3.  That  in  the  reception  of  preachers  into  this 
body  constant  regard  will  be  had,  not  only  to  their  personal 
qualifications  and  claims  upon  our  Christian  kindness  and 
charity,  but  also  to  the  opinions,  feelings,  and  wishes  of  our 
people,  and  none  ought  to  be  admitted  whose  conduct,  dur- 
ing the  late  rebellion,  has  been  such  as  to  make  them  odious 
to  the  masses,  and  whose  usefulness  as  ministers  of  the 
gospel  has  been  sacrificed  to  the  unholy  cause  of  treason  and 
rebellion. 

Resolved,  4.  That,  while  we  feel  constrained  thus  to  indi- 
cate what  is  now  the  necessary  policy  of  this  Conference,  we, 
with  hopeful  hearts,  look  forward  to  the  time,  and  hope  it  is 
not  far  distant,  when  general  confidence,  friendship,  and  good- 
will shall  be  restored,  and  when,  as  in  better  days,  we  shall 
be  one  in  heart,  one  in  purpose,  and  one  in  our  great  work 
and  labor  of  love. 

The  report  on  the  State  of  the  Country  was 
adopted,  as  follows : 

Your  Committee  on  the  State  of  the  Country  respectfully 
report: 

The  Holston  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  in  resuming  the  place  she  occupied  among  her  sister 
Annual  Conferences  up  to  1844,  takes  a  decided  position  of 
loyalty,  and  heartily  agrees  with  them  in  their  outspoken 
antagonism  to  slavery.  Our  people  have  given  costly  proof 
of  their  devotion  to  the  National  Government,  and  by  their 
votes  slavery  in  Tennessee  has  been  buried  beyond,  as  we 
trust,  a  hope  of  resurrection.  In  assuming  this  position,  this 
Conference  makes  for  herself  a  very  different  record  from 
that  of  the  Holston  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South,  touching  these  questions.  That  Conference, 
held  in  this  place  in  1862,  expelled  one  of  its  members  "for 
joining  the  enemies  of  his  country;"  that  is,  for  being  a  loyal 
citizen  and  aiding  his  Government  in  suppressing  rebellion. 
It  suspended  another  of  its'  members  for  a  similar  cause.  In 
an  elaborate  report,  presented  by  John  N.  McTyeire,  on  these 


296     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

cases,  and  others  similarly  accused,  "the  continued  agitation 
of  the  subject  of  slavery"  by  the  Churches  North  is  falsely 
assigned  as  the  cause  of  the  late  wicked  rebellion.  We  say 
"falsely,"  because  it  was  not  the  agitation  of  the  slavery 
question,  but  the  ineradicable  tendencies  and  vices  of  the 
system  itself,  which  brought  about  the  unhappy  events  which 
have  transpired. 

That  report  also  openly  avows  and  advocates  the  rightful- 
ness of  the  late  attempted  disruption  of  the  United  States, 
and  gravely  urges  "the  duty  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South,  alike  because  of  her  historical  antecedents 
and  her  doctrinal  peculiarities  touching  Southern  institutions 
generally,  and  this  institution — slavery — especially,  to  be 
found  arrayed  side  by  side  with  the  great  masses  of  the  South- 
ern people  in  religiously  contending  in  part  for  the  same 
rights — political,  civil,  and  religious — for  the  security  of  which 
they  were  compelled,  in  1844,  to  adopt  measures  for  a  sepa- 
rate and  independent  ecclesiastical  organization."  .  .  . 
"But  now  that  these  questions — abstract  political  questions  of 
secession  and  rebellion — have  assumed  a  concrete  form,  and 
under  the  inspiration  of  Abolition  fanaticism,  have  kindled 
the  fires  of  the  most  brutal  and  ruthless  war  ever  known  in 
the  history  of  man,  involving  every  interest,  political  and 
religious,  held  to  be  most  sacred  and  absolutely  vital  to  the 
present  and  future  weal  of  our  people,  it  is  the  deliberate 
conviction  of  your  committee  that  no  patriot,  no  Christian, 
and,  least  of  all,  no  Christian  minister  who  claims  to  be  a 
citizen  of  the  Confederate  States  of  America,  and  who  is  pre- 
sumed to  be  even  partially  acquainted  with  the  merits  of  this 
unhappy  controversy,  can  throw  the  weight  of  his  opinions, 
words,  or  acts  into  the  scale  of  our  enemies  against  us  with  moral 
impunity,  or  with  a  conscience  void  of  offense  toward  God 
and  his  fellow-countrymen." 

Such  treasonable  deliverance,  by  a  body  of  ministers  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  in  the  United  States,  as  well  as  the 
apparent  spirit  in  which  they  were  adopted,  and  the  intolerant, 
relentless,  and  bitter  persecutions  of  dissentients  by  which 
they  were  followed,  justly  produce  surprise  and  astonishment; 
for  they  present  a  most  humiliating  fact  in  the  history  of  a 
religious  organization — a  fact  from  which  it  would  seem  all 
good,  true,  patriotic,  and  Christian  men  must  turn  away 
with  ineffable  shame  and  regret. 


CONFERENCE  RESOLUTIONS.  297 

In  view  of  the  foregoing  facts  and  considerations,  it  is 
therefore 

Resolved,  That  we  hail,  with  intense,  inexpressible  pleas- 
ure and  profound  gratitude  to  God  the  triumph  of  the 
national  arms  over  a  gigantic,  unprovoked,  and  wicked  re- 
bellion; the  dispersion  of  the  rebel  armies  which  crimsoned 
the  land  with  the  blood  of  our  sons  and  brothers,  swept  our 
homes  with  desolation,  and  filled  our  hearts  with  anguish; 
the  established  unity  and  integrity  of  our  country  and  Gov- 
ernment; and  also  the  assured  future  of  our  priceless  national 
heritage  of  peace  and  liberty,  civilization  and  religion. 

Resolved,  That,  as  contributive  to  these  results,  we  cherish 
with  liveliest  interest  the  hope,  and  we  will  labor  with  earnest 
zeal  to  realize  its  fruition,  that  soon  the  banners  of  true 
Methodism,  loyal  to  country,  to  freedom,  to  right,  and  to 
God,  shall  wave  in  triumph  over  the  whole  country,  from  east 
to  west,  and  from  north  to  south,  as  now  waves  the  banner  of 
the  Republic. 

It  was  stated  by  Brother  Spence  that  Brother 
Fitzgerald  had  been  waylaid  by  guerrillas,  marched  to 
the  woods,  and  robbed  of  watch,  clothing,  and  money, 
on  his  way  to  the  Conference,  and  that  he  was  expect- 
ing to  be  appointed  to  North  Carolina,  and  had  no 
money  to  go  with.  A  collection  of  fifty  dollars  was 
raised  for  him. 

After  the  report  on  the  State  of  the  Country  was 
adopted,  Brother  Drake,  of  the  Ohio  Conference,  and 
other  brethren,  sang  the  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic. 

CONFERENCE  SUNDAY. 

An  immense  audience  crowded  the  church  during 
the  entire  exercises  of  the  day.  At  nine  o'clock  a 
Sunday-school  meeting  was  had,  under  the  direction 
of  Brother  Spence.  Brethren  Black,  Hyden,  and 
Gibson,  army  chaplains,  and  Pearne  and  Spence,  ad- 
dressed the  meeting,  the  children  singing  sweet  ho- 
sannas.     Bishop  Clark  preached,  at  10.30  o'clock,  an 


29-S     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

effective  sermon.  At  times  the  audience  seemed  quite 
transported  by  the  eloquence  and  fervor  of  the  bishop. 
At  the  close  of  the  sermon  eight  deacons  were  or- 
dained. At  three  o'clock  P.  M.,  Rev.  T.  H.  Pearne,  of 
Oregon,  preached,  at  the  close  of  which  six  were  or- 
dained elders. 

MONDAY. 

The  Conference  finished  its  session  this  morning 
at  10.30  o'clock.  Greeneville  was  fixed  as  the  place  of 
holding  the  next  session.  Several  preachers  additional 
were  received  from  the  Church  South  this  morning. 
Among  them  was  Rev.  L.  W.  Crouch,  a  prominent 
member  of  the  Holston  Conference. 

The  Conference  has  received  forty-three,  including 
probationers,  making,  with  those  transferred,  fifty  in 
all.  Besides  these,  there  are  eighteen  appointments 
left  to  be  supplied.  The  Conference  has  preachers 
stationed  in  Tennessee,  North  Carolina,  and  Georgia. 
The  statistics  show  a  membership  of  6,494,  including 
probationers,  51  Sunday-schools,  336  officers  and 
teachers,  2,425  scholars,  55  local  preachers,  and  101 
churches.  What  a  glorious  result  from  the  labors  of 
about  a  year  spent  in  hunting  up  the  sheep  scattered 
in  the  wilderness!  What  a  precious,  glorious  future 
may  not,  shall  not,  follow  this  wonderful  beginning! 

The  following  are  the  appointments  of  the  Con- 
ference : 

Knoxville  District — Thomas.  H.  Pearne,  P.  E. — Knox- 
ville,  J.  F.  Spence.  Knox,  Joseph  P.  Milburn.  Rogersville, 
E.  E.  Gillenwater;  supply,  G.  M.  Hicks.  Sneedsville,  F.  D. 
Crumley.  Tazewell  and  Powell's  Valley,  J.  B  Walker;  one 
to  be  supplied.  Maynardsville,  Thomas  S.  Walker.  Rut- 
ledge,  Philip  Chambers.  Jacksboro,  John  Forrester.  Clin- 
ton, John  Mahoney.  Dandridge,  Andrew  J.  Greer.  Sevier- 
ville,  Daniel  Carter. 


APPOINTMENTS.  299 

Athens  District—/.  Albert  Hyden,  P.  E. — Athens,  John 
W.  Mann,  L.  W.  Crouch.  Athens  Circuit,  John  E.  Moore. 
Decatur,  Joseph  W.  Peace.  Philadelphia,  J.  B.  Little,  J.  M. 
Stamper.  Madisonville  and  Jellico  Mission,  to  be  supplied. 
Marysville,  Thomas  H.  Russel.  Louisville,  T.  P.  Rutherford. 
Little  River,  to  be  supplied.  Kingston  and  Sulphur  Springs, 
Samuel  B.  Harwell,  supply;  one  to  be  supplied.  Mont- 
gomery, to  be  supplied.  E.  Rowley,  President  of  and  Agent 
for  Athens  Female  College,  and  member  of  Athens  Quarterly 
Conference.  W.  H.  Rogers,  Conference  Agent  for  Sunday- 
schools,  educational  institutions,  and  embarrassed  Churches, 
and   member   of  Louisville   Quarterly   Conference. 

Chattanooga  District.—  William  C.  Daily,  P.  ^.—Chat- 
tanooga, T.  S.  Stivers.  Cleveland,  J.  L.  Mann.  Cleveland 
and  Benton,  A.  F.  Shannon;  one  to  be  supplied.  Hamilton 
and  Washington,  M.  H.  B.  Burkitt,  G.  A.  Gowan.  Pikes- 
ville  and  Jasper,  John  Alley;  one  to  be  supplied.  Ducktown, 
to  be  supplied.  Harrison  and  Lafayette,  two  to  be  supplied. 
Dalton,  to  be  supplied.  Rome,  to  be  supplied.  Atlanta,  to 
be  supplied. 

Jonesboro  District— L.  F.  Drake,  P.  E.— Jonesboro,  to 
be  supplied.  Jonesboro  Circuit,  to  be  supplied.  Elizabeth- 
town  and  Taylorsville,  Harmon  J.  Crumley.  Blountville  and 
Bristol,  to  be  supplied.  Kingsport,  S.  G  Gaines.  Rheatown, 
Joseph  Milburn.  Greeneville,  to  be  supplied.  Morristown, 
W.  C.  Graves.  Fall  Branch  and  Kingsport,  to  be  supplied. 
St.  Clair,  to  be  supplied.  Newport,  James  Mahoney.  North 
Carolina  Circuit,  A.  R.  Wilson,  J.  B.  Fitzgerald.  William 
Milburn  chaplain  in  the  army,  and  member  of  Rheatown 
Quarterly  Conference. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

ON  the  last  day  of  the  session  of  the  Holston 
Conference,  just  before  adjournment,  Bishop 
Clark  made  the  following  closing  remarks,  which 
were  phonographically  reported  by  Rev.  C.  G. 
Bowdish : 

Brethren, — Though  the  time  for  the  departure 
of  the  train  which  must  bear  us  away  is  at  hand,  in- 
dulge me  in  a  few  remarks  at  this  closing  hour. 

And,  first,  allow  me  to  return  thanks  for  the  kind 
mention  you  have  made  of  my  services,  and  the  gen- 
erous expression  of  confidence  and  affection  made  by 
you  in  the  resolution  just  passed.  Next  to  the  ap- 
proval of  God  and  my  own  conscience,  I  hold  that 
of  my  brethren  in  highest  honor.  If  my  official  serv- 
ices among  you,  in  the  new  and  anomalous  state  of 
affairs  in  which  we  have  been  placed,  have  received 
your  approbation,  I  am  glad.  And  truly  thankful  shall 
I  be  if  they  are  approved  by  the  great  Head  of  the 
Church,  and  shall  tend  to  promote  the  great  ends  of 
a  pure  Christianity  among  you. 

The  uniform  kindness  and  courtesy  that  have 
characterized  your  intercourse  throughout,  the  har- 
mony of  thought,  and  purpose,  and  feeling,  are  worthy 
of  all  commendation.  We  came  together  strangers 
to  each  other.  You  were  without  organization. 
Everything  was  in  a  chaotic  state.  You  had  to  be- 
come acquainted  with  each  other's  views,  and  feelings, 
and  purposes.  You  had  to  learn,  to  a  great  extent, 
who  among  you  could  be  relied  upon,  and  how  much 
reliance   could  be   placed   upon  the   movement  as  a 

300 


BISHOP  CLARK'S  ADDRESS.  3OI 

whole.  To  see  you,  then,  blending  together  so  har- 
moniously, becoming  one  in  feeling,  plan,  and  pur- 
pose, and  giving  shape  to  your  movement  with  as 
much  system  and  order  as  an  old-established  Confer- 
ence, was  not  only  a  sight  beautiful  to  the  eye,  but  a 
cause  of  profound  gratitude  to  Almighty  God,  who 
has  given  you  this  will  and  purpose.  But  into  this 
you  have  been  schooled,  in  a  great  measure,  by  the 
common  perils  through  which  you  have  passed,  and 
the  common  sufferings  you  have  endured  in  this  ruth- 
less war,  which  has  swept  over  and  desolated  so  large 
a  portion  of  this  land.  From  questions  which  have 
been  proposed  to  me,  I  judge  it  may  not  be  amiss  to 
repeat  the  explanations  which  have  already  been  given 
on  one  or  two  points :  First.  With  regard  to  the 
specific  conditions  upon  which  ministers  coining  from 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  are  received 
among  us.  You  will  observe  these  conditions  are  the 
same  as  those  required  of  ministers  coming  from  the 
Wesleyan  Connection  in  England,  with  the  addition 
that  they  are  to  give  satisfactory  assurances  to  the 
Annual  Conference  of  their  loyalty  to  the  National 
Government,  and  also  of  their  hearty  approval  of  the 
anti-slavery  doctrine  of  our  Church.  This  was  not 
designed  as  a  reflection  upon  any  individual  minister ; 
but  you  are  aware,  brethren,  that  while  the  old  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church  has  been  intensely  loyal  to  the 
Government,  the  Church  South  has,  in  every  depart- 
ment, been  tainted  with  treason.  So,  also,  in  regard 
to  slavery ;  while  the  old  Church  has  been  developing 
into  clearer  and  more  decisive  forms  of  practical  ap- 
plication the  anti-slavery  doctrine  she  held  from  the 
beginning,  the  case  has  been  widely  different  with  the 
Church  South.  The  cause  of  her  separation  from  the 
old  Church,  the  corner-stone  on  which  she  built,  was 
slavery,  and,  as  a  result,  she  has  not  only  received 


302     SIXTY- ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK'. 

"the  great  evil"  as  a  great  good,  but  has  become  stained 
all  over  with  the  crimes  of  oppression  and  treason.  I 
repeat  it,  then,  that  it  is  not  a  reflection  upon  any  in- 
dividual minister,  but  to  guard  against  the  possible 
creeping  in  again  of  either  of  those  two  elements,  that 
the  old  Church  has  placed  these  two  sentinels  at  the 
door  of  entrance.  No  true  man  will  wish  them  re- 
moved. No  one  true  to  his  allegiance  to  his  country 
or  his  Church  would  hesitate  to  assume  the  obligation. 

Brethren,  on  going  forth  from  this  place  to  en- 
gage in  your  work,  I  am  aware  that  you  are  going 
forth  to  a  very  delicate,  as  well  as  important,  mission. 
There  is  no  Annual  Conference  in  all  the  bounds  of 
Christian  labor  where  the  work  is  environed  with  so 
many  difficulties,  and  where  so  much  wisdom,  so  much 
gentleness  of  spirit,  so  much  patience  under  provo- 
cation, will  be  required  as  here  in  this  work. 

I  do  not  say  that  we  are  utterly  and  entirely  to 
ignore  the  past,  or  that  you  can  obliterate  from  your 
minds  the  scenes  through  which  you  have  been  called 
to  pass.  Those  of  you  who  have  been  called  to  suffer, 
who  have  been  fugitives  from  your  homes,  seeking 
hiding-places  among  the  mountains,  whose  substance 
has  been  wasted,  whose  sons  have  been  slain  on  the 
battle-field,  or  foully  butchered  in  the  presence  of  be- 
seeching mothers  and  sisters,  I  do  not  say  that  you 
can  obliterate  these  sufferings  from  your  memory; 
I  do  not  say  that,  without  hearty  repentance  and 
amendment  on  their  part,  you  can  associate  on  familiar 
or  brotherly  terms  with  those  who  have  assisted  in 
bringing  on  this  fearful  state  of  things.  And  yet, 
brethren,  it  does  appear  to  me  that  you  are  placed 
precisely  of  all  others  in  the  bounds  of  the  Church, 
where,  in  all  her  history,  you  can  best  exhibit  the  mag- 
nanimity of  Christianity ;  where  you  can  exhibit  that 
forgiveness  and  that  love  that  rises  above  every  injus- 


CLOSING  ADDRESS.  303 

ticc  and  wrong-.  I  pray  God  you  may  go  forth  bearing 
this  spirit  in  your  heart,  and  may  manifest  it  in  all 
your  labors  in  the  vineyard  of  your  Lord  and  Master. 
Wherever  you  go  from  this  place,  let  it  be  seen  that 
you  bear  this  spirit  with  you.  See  to  it  that  the  pre- 
cious seed  you  sow  be  not  rendered  unfruitful.  Your 
provocations  are  great,  but  the  indwelling  spirit  of 
Christ  will  make  you  superior  to  them  all. 

Upon  the  point  of  reconstruction  I  will  add  an- 
other word.  If  you  wish  to  lay  deep  and  broad  the 
foundations  of  the  Church  here,  you  can  not  do  it 
by  excluding  all  who  have  been  in  any  way  connected 
with  this  rebellion,  as  some  propose.  You  can  not 
lift  up  your  banner,  and  say,  We  will  have  no  member 
nor  minister  that  has  been  swept  away  in  this  fearful 
tide,  of  secession,  this  whirlwind  of  desolation  that  has 
passed  over  this  land ;  but  it  appears  to  me  that  when 
such  persons  become  convinced  of  their  error,  that 
they  were  mistaken,  that  they  were  led  astray  by  the 
leadership  of  others ;  when  men  come  feeling  thus, 
with  open  arms  and  Christian  love,  you  should  receive 
them  and  press  them  to  your  breasts,  and  bid  them 
Godspeed  in  the  way  to  heaven. 

The  announcement  of  the  appointments  of  an 
Annual  Conference  is  always  an  hour  of  oppressive 
sadness,  and  my  feelings  have  ever  shrunk  from 
this  duty,  as  a  burden  I  should  never  have  willingly 
undertaken,  had  not  God,  in  his  providence,  placed  it 
upon  me.  I  am  aware  that  all  my  brethren  here  can 
not  be  satisfied,  that  their  views  and  their  feelings 
can  not  always  be  met;  their  convenience,  their  com- 
fort, sometimes,  must  be  sacrificed,  and  the  comfort  of 
their  families.  The  social  relations  of  our  itinerants, the 
comfort  of  their  wives  and  children,  are  to  be  con- 
sidered. I  do  hold  that  the  wife  of  an  itinerant  should 
not  be  forgotten,  but  that  her  feelings  and  her  inter- 


304     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

ests  should  be  taken  into  account  in  the  adjustment 
of  these  appointments.  These  women,  who  share  in 
the  labors  of  the  itinerant,  and  do  their  part  in  carry- 
ing forward  the  great  work  of  an  itinerant  ministry — 
all  honor  to  their  devotion,  and  the  blessing  of  heaven 
rest  upon  them ! 

My  brethren,  your  mission  may  sometimes  seem 
hard  and  uninviting,  but  you  will  remember  that  it 
is  the  same  mission  that  brought  the  blessed  Redeemer 
from  heaven  to  earth.  O,  when  you  view  it  in  this 
light,  when  you  remember  that  this  work  was  con- 
sidered of  such  transcendent  importance  as  to  bring 
the  blessed  Redeemer  to  earth,  how  it  swells  into 
grandeur  and  importance !  You  go  forth  to-day  upon 
the  same  mission,  and  to  work  in  the  same  vineyard. 
You  will  remember  that  he  came  not  here  to  enjoy 
the  palaces  of  ease  and  luxury.  He  came  not  here 
to  enjoy  the  comforts  of  home  or  the  conveniences  of 
life ;  but  he  came  to  be  a  homeless  wanderer,  that 
fallen  humanity  might  be  blessed,  redeemed,  and 
saved.  You  go  forth  to  the  same  mission,  and  in  all 
your  joys,  in  all  your  privations  and  toils  in  the  vine- 
yard of  your  blessed  Master,  remember  your  Savior 
trod  in  the  same  path,  endured  the  same  toils,  shared 
in  the  same  triumphs,  and  reaps  the  same  rewards. 
As  you  bow  at  this  sacred  altar,  in  these  closing  serv- 
ices, take  of  the  same  love  that  was  in  the  heart  of 
your  blessed  Master,  let  that  spirit  be  kindled  in  your 
hearts,  go  forth  bearing  this  spirit,  and  God  will  bless 
you  and  your  labors  in  his  vineyard. 

I  must  now  leave  this  work  with  you  and  with 
God.  O,  may  his  blessing  be  upon  you !  As  your 
beautiful  country  is  just  beginning  to  recuperate  from 
the  desolations  of  war,  and  gives  promise  of  returning 
beauty  and  prosperity,  so  may  the  spiritual  heritage 
you  cultivate  ''bud  and  blossom  as  the  rose."    May  the 


CLOSING  ADDRESS.  305 

Great  Master  go  with  you,  may  you  be  armed  and 
equipped  as  good  soldiers  for  your  work,  and  the 
blessing  of  God  be  upon  you,  upon  your  families, 
upon  the  Churches  over  which  you  have  the  over- 
sight, and  through  your  instrumentality  sinners  be 
brought  home  to  God !  And  if  you  should  fall  in  the 
work — and  this  may  be  the  case — it  may  be  that  some 
of  these  fathers,  full  of  toils  and  labors  in  the  past, 
may  cease  to  live,  and  go  to  their  reward ;  or  it  may 
be  that  some  of  the  middle-aged,  in  the  strength  of 
their  manhood,  and  bearing  the  burden  and  heat  of 
the  day,  will  pass  away ;  or  it  may  be  some  young 
man,  just  rising  in  the  morning  of  life,  and  girding 
himself  for  the  work,  may  be  called ;  whoever  it  may 
be,  God  grant  that  he  may  pass  away  with  the  light 
of  heaven  shining  all  around,  and  go  from  these  scenes 
of  toil  to  the  immortal  rewards  at  God's  right  hand! 
Through  all  my  life,  down  to  my  dying  hour,  shall 
this  session  of  the  Holston  Conference  live  in  my 
memory.  I  shall  cherish  with  fond  recollection  the 
thought  that  I  have  been  permitted  to  come  among 
you,  and  that  here  the  banner  of  the  old  Church,  after 
an  interval  of  twenty  years,  has  been  again  unfurled ; 
that  Church  'that  has  won  so  many  victories  in 
the  past,  that  is  spreading  her  agencies  all  through 
the  land;  that  is  following  up  the  tide  of  life  along 
our  Western  frontier ;  that  is  prosecuting  her  mission- 
ary work  all  over  the  golden  plains  of  the  interior 
of  our  country,  and  spreading  along  the  Pacific  Coast ; 
that  is  raising  her  standard  in  India  and  China.  I 
rejoice  to  come  among  you,  and,  here  in  the  South, 
to  raise  up  the  fallen  standard  of  the  old  Church,  where 
so  many  victories  have  been  achieved  in  the  past. 
Amid  these  scenes  of  former  toil  and  triumph  may  that 
standard  be  lifted  up  forever,  and  onward  may  it  be 
borne  to  still  greater  victories  in  the  future ! 
20 


306     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT  WORK. 

In  the  Western  Christian  Advocate  of  August  20, 
1 89 1,  I  contributed  the  following  personal  recol- 
lections of  the  events  referred  to  in  the  last  chapter, 
with  some  additional  particulars.  As  this  was  the 
beginning  of  our  new  work  in  the  South,  they  will 
be  of  special  interest  to  the  reader. 

BISHOP  CLARK  IN  THE  SOUTH. 

The  one  feature  of  Bishop  Clark's  episcopal  ad- 
ministration which  will  most  distinguish  it  is  the  lead- 
ing part  he  took  in  replanting  our  Church  in  the 
South,  from  which,  twenty  years  before,  slavery  had 
banished  it.  Hundreds  have  said,  since  reconstruc- 
tion, that  the  division  of  the  Church  in  1845  nad  given 
them  great  dissatisfaction.  Hence  they  hailed  the  re- 
turn of  the  old  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  with  the 
liveliest  satisfaction.  In  this  movement  Bishop  Clark 
was  a  chief  actor.  In  conducting  it  he  displayed  rare 
qualities  as  a  leader  and  organizer.  He  was  prudent, 
yet  wise,  bold,  resourceful.  He  showed  good  judg- 
ment of  men,  and  he  handled  men  with  skill.  In 
twelve  years'  experience  as  a  presiding  elder  I  never 
sat  in  cabinet  with  a  bishop  more  careful  and  wise; 
and  in  the  special  work  of  reconstruction  he  displayd 
these  qualities  in  a  marked  degree.  The  great  scope 
and  growth  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  since 
1865  prove  his  far-sighted  sagacity.  They  show  that 
he  was  divinely  led.  I  was  intimately  associated  with 
him  from  the  beginning  of  his  work  in  that  Southern 
field.  It  is  therefore  fitting  that  I  should  detail  such 
events  of  that  period  as  will  best  display  his  character- 
istics in  that  delicate,  difficult,  and  most  significant 
movement. 

My  personal  acquaintance  with  him  began  in  the 
General  Conference  of  1864.    Previous  general  knowl- 


ARTICLE   IN  ADVOCATE.  307 

edge  of  him,  as  a  successful  educator  and  editor,  had 
prepossessed  me  in  his  favor.  The  later  and  closer 
official  and  personal  relations  I  had  with  him  con- 
firmed my  impressions.  Hence  I  voted  for  hinivfor 
bishop  in  1864,  when  he  was  elected. 

In  June,  1865,  at  nis  request,  I  accompanied  him  to 
Athens,  Tennessee,  where  he  reorganized  the  Holston 
Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 
Some  months  before  a  Convention  was  held  in  Knox- 
ville,  Tennessee,  consisting  of  local  and  traveling  min- 
isters and  laymen  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South.  The  members  of  that  Convention  had  been 
loyal  to  the  United  States  during  the  then  recent  war. 
They  also  expressed  the  views  and  wishes  of  some 
thousands  of  other  laymen,  who  also  had  been  thus 
true.  They  had  suffered  greatly  because  of  such 
loyalty.  Some  of  them,  for  this  reason,  had  been  pro- 
scribed, tried,  and  suspended  by  the  Holston  Con- 
ference of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South. 
Some  of  them  had  been  in  rebel  prisons  for  their  de- 
votion to  the  national  cause.  All  this  was  duly  set 
forth  in  the  resolutions  adopted  by  the  Convention, 
and  which  also  declared  their  unwillingness  longer 
to  recognize  the  pastors  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South,  as  their  pastors. 

The  Convention  also  requested  the  authorities  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  to  reorganize  the 
old  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  East  Tennessee. 
In  pursuance  of  these  facts,  Bishop  Clark  proceeded 
to  Athens  to  organize  the  first  Methodist  Annual  Con- 
ference in  the  late  slave  States  since  the  division  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  1845.  Dr.  Adam 
Poe,  then  one  of  the  Western  Book  Agents,  was  of 
our  party.  The  railroads  in  Tennessee  were  yet  under 
military  control.  We  traveled  over  them  on  military 
passes. 


308     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

In  Nashville,  Rev.  J.  B.  McFerrin,  D.  D.,  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  sought  and  ob- 
tained an  interview  with  Bishop  Clark.  By  the 
bishop's  request,  Dr.  Poe  and  myself  were  present  on 
that  occasion.  I  am  the  only  survivor  of  the  four  per- 
sons then  present.  Dr.  McFerrin  earnestly  urged  the 
bishop  to  desist  from,  or  to  defer,  his  purpose  to  re- 
organize the  old  Church  in  the  South.  He  hoped  to 
see  an  organic  union  of  the  two  Methodist  Episcopal 
Churches  after  the  passions  and  animosities  of  the  war 
had  subsided.  He  thought  the  reorganization  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  East  Tennessee  would 
revive  the  smoldering  embers  of  sectionalism,  and  de- 
fer for  a  long  time,  if  not  forever,  the  fulfillment  of 
his  hope  of  such  reunion.  He  pleaded  that  the  old 
pastors  of  that  section  could  better  serve  the  people 
there  than  new  ones  imported  from  the  North. 

The  bishop  replied,  in  substance,  that  most  of  the 
East  Tennesseeans  had  been  loyal ;  that  some  of  their 
ministers  had  be*en  deposed  for  their  loyalty,  and  had 
been  otherwise  ill-treated;  that  the  large  Knoxville 
Convention,  including  many  preachers  and  laymen, 
and  representing  thousands  of  others,  had  urgently 
requested  the  re-establishment  of  the  old  Church ;  and 
that,  in  this  request,  the  laymen  were  more  strenuous 
than  the  ministers.  The  bishop  also  showed  that  the 
pastors  he  would  appoint  would  be  chiefly  those  who 
had  served  that  people  as  pastors  before  and  during 
the  war;  and  that,  if  the  petitioners  could  not  have 
the  ministry  of  loyal  preachers  of  their  own  denom- 
ination, they  would  go  to  other  Churches,  and  not  to 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South.  The  bishop 
said  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  could  not  ig- 
nore the  Macedonian  cry  coming  from  those  sheep 
without  shepherds  and  a  fold ;  and  that,  finally,  to  pro- 
vide for  these  and  any  others  in  the  South  who  might 


TRANSFER    TO   HOLSTON  CONFERENCE.         309 

ask  or  need  such  provision,  would  not,  in  his  opinion, 
retard,  but,  on  the  contrary,  would  hasten,  the  organic 
unity  desired,  whenever  the  hour  for  it  should  really 
strike.  Dr.  Poe  said  but  little,  and  I  said  nothing. 
I  detail  this  conversation  thus  minutely  as  an  act  of 
justice  to  Bishop  Clark,  and  because  it  seemed  to  me 
like  a  turning  of  the  hinges  of  destiny. 

I  was  transferred  to  the  new  Conference,  and  as- 
signed to  Knoxville  District.  Amid  tears  and  shouts, 
Bishop  Clark  organized  the  new  Conference  as  the 
Holston  Conference.  Four  districts  were  formed  and 
manned.  Carefully,  wisely,  and  thoroughly  the  bishop 
tended  these  new  charges.  He  presided  in  two  or 
three  Conference  sessions  during  that  quadrennium, 
because,  better  than  a  stranger,  he  knew  the  needs 
of  the  work.  How  wonderfully  the  planting  of  twenty- 
six  years  ago  has  grown  and  multiplied,  is  demon- 
strated by  our  Church  statistics.  In  church-building 
there,  with  suspended  Church  Extension  drafts,  he 
strongly  and  kindly  re-enforced  his  ministers  in  the 
South  with  counsel  and  pecuniary  relief,  until  we  all 
came  to  regard  him  more  as  a  father  and  a  friend 
than  as  a  leader  and  organizer,  although  he  excelled 
in  both  these  latter  qualities. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

In  the  Western  Christian  Advocate  for  June  7, 
1865,  appeared  the  following  contribution  from  my 
pen: 

LETTER  FROM  NASHVILLE. 

This  has  been  a  day  of  special  interest  in  Nash- 
ville. McKendree  Chapel  is  occupied  by  us  under  a 
military  order.  The  title,  I  am  informed,  is  in  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  The  building  is  seventy- 
five  feet  by  one  hundred.  The  audience-room  is  there- 
fore spacious  and  comfortable.  A  basement,  with  class 
and  Sunday-school  rooms,  is  under  the  entire  build- 
ing. The  congregation  worshiping  in  old  McKendree 
is  perceptibly  changing,  in  the  diminishing  number 
of  soldiers  who  attend,  and  the  greater  proportion 
of  civilians,  including  ladies.  The  parsonage  premises 
are  held  and  occupied  by  Brother  McGee  in  similar 
manner  as  the  church. 

Yesterday  McKendree  Chapel  was  crowded  to  lis- 
ten to  Rev.  Bishop  Clark,  of  your  city.  His  sermon 
was  heard  by  the  immense  audience  with  profound 
attention.  Rev.  Dr.  Poe,  of  your  Book  Concern,  as- 
sisted in  the  services.  They  also  attended  and  ad- 
dressed the  large  Sunday-school  which  preceded  the 
public  worship.  In  the  afternoon  the  sacrament  of 
the  Lord's  Supper  was  observed,  and  nearly  sixty 
communicated.  At  evening,  Rev.  T.  H.  Pearne..  of 
Oregon,  preached.  Owing  to  a  sudden  thunder- 
shower,  the  attendance  was  less  than  in  the  morning, 
yet  a  good  degree  of  interest  was  apparent.  This 
is  a  memorable  day  for  Nashville  and  Tennessee. 

310 


LETTER  FROM  NASHVILLE.  311 

"There  are  signs  in  the  sky  that  the  morning  is 
near."  The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  takes  no 
backward  steps.  The  Daily  Press  and  Times,  of  this 
city,  thus  noticed  the  interview  of  Bishop  Clark  and 
others  with  Governor  Brownlow : 

Interesting  Meeting. — Calling  in  at  the  executive  room 
of  the  Capitol  Saturday  morning,  we  found  Governor  Brown- 
low  in  conference — we  might  say  Methodist  Conference — with 
the  distinguished  Bishop  Clark,  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  of  Cincinnati;  Rev.  Dr.  A.  Poe,  of  the  Methodist 
Book  Concern,  of  the  same  city;  Rev.  T.  H.  Pearne,  of  Ore- 
gon, late  editor  of  the  Pacific  Christian  Advocate,  and  some 
three  or  four  other  Methodist  clergymen,  among  them  some 
of  our  most  active  chaplains.  The  first  three  named  are  on 
their  way  to  attend  the  Holston  Conference,  which  will  meet 
in  Athens,  East  Tennessee,  on  the  1st  of  June  next.  We 
learned  that  their  purpose  is,  if  possible,  to  effect  a  reunion 
of  the  Methodist  Church  of  this  State  with  the  Church,  North, 
so  that  the  grand  old  denomination  may  "once  more  be  a 
national  organization.  May  God  speed  the  reunion!  It  will 
be  the  welding  of  another  of  those  golden  links  whose 
breaking  hastened  our  Civil  War.  The  first  was  an  involun- 
tary meeting  of  the  rebel  preachers  of  this  city,  summoned 
by  Governor  Johnson  in  1862,  to  inquire  into  their  purposes 
and  feelings  toward  the  Government.  Governor  Johnson 
presided  with  the  dignity  of  a  bishop;  but  the  rebellious  pas- 
tors looked  as  sour  as  a  barrel  of  pickles. 

The  editor  is  slightly  incorrect  as  to  the  purpose 
of  Bishop  Clark's  visit.  It  is  not  exactly  to  effect  a 
union  of  the  Methodist  Church  of  the  State  with  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  for  in  Middle  and  West- 
ern Tennessee  the  Methodists  have  not  generally  in- 
dicated a  desire  for  such  reunion ;  but  in  East  Ten- 
nessee some  five  thousand  laymen  and  nearly  thirty 
ministers  have  dissolved  allegiance  to  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  South,  and  propose  to  unite  with 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 

On  next  Thursday  Bishop  Clark  is  to  preside  at 


312      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

the  reorganization  of  the  Holston  Conference  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  he  will  appoint  pas- 
tors over  the  scattered  Churches  of  East  Tennessee. 
These  pastors  will  be  mostly  those  who  have  remained 
true  to  the  Nation  through  the  storm  of  rebellion,  and 
they  and  the  laymen  to  whom  they  will  minister, 
prefer  a  Church  which  has  never  faltered  in  its  loyalty 
to  the  National  Government.  Of  the  Conference  I 
will  write  you  more  fully  hereafter. 

This  place  was  the  headquarters  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  South.  Here  was  their  Book  Con- 
cern and  Publishing-house.  The  building  and  its  ma- 
chinery were  converted — rumor  says  with  the  ap- 
proval, if  not  at  the  instance  of  the  agents — into  an 
official  engineery  for  manufacturing  munitions  of  war 
for  the  now  defunct  Confederacy.  When  Nashville 
was  occupied  by  our  troops,  the  house  was  employed 
for  holding  military  supplies.  The  building  looks 
desolate  and  dilapidated. 

Rev.  Drs.  J.  B.  McFerrin  and  A.  L.  P.  Green, 
whose  inflammatory  speeches  helped  to  "fire  the 
Southern  heart"  in  this  region,  and  gave  impetus  to 
secession  movements  here,  followed  the  Confederate 
army  as  chaplains,  or  otherwise,  until  it  disbanded. 
They  have  lately  returned,  and  taken  the  oath  under 
the  Amnesty  Proclamation.  It  is  said  they  have  be- 
come convinced  by  events  that  the  overthrow  of  re- 
bellion and  slavery  is  according  to  the  will  of  God. 
Their  optics  must  have  been  very  obtuse  not  to  have 
seen  it  long  since. 

Considerable  is  said  here  of  a  union  of  the  two 
Methodist  Churches.  The  plan  favored  by  leading 
ministers  of  the  Church  South  is  for  us  to  take  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  back  as  a  whole, 
with  its  editors,  book  agents,  bishops,  and  mission- 
ary arrangements  entire.    How  would  that  be  relished 


LETTER  FROM  NASHVILLE.  313 

in  the  North  ?  Bishop  Soule  resides  six  miles  north  of 
this  place,  on  the  Gallatin  Pike.  He  is  in  failing 
health,  both  of  mind  and  body. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  latent  Copperheadism  here. 
Secesh  ladies  say  "The  South  is  conquered,  but  not 
subdued,"  and  the  love  for  the  Union  is  not  as  general 
nor  as  strong  as  it  should  be.  There  is  considerable 
of  the  Copperish  element  in  the  Legislature,  which 
is  now  in  session.  Negro  suffrage  will  not  be  allowed 
at  the  present  session.  The  same  members  will  meet 
next  fall.  They  may  provide  for  it  then.  It  is  their 
only  protection  against  the  prevalence  of  anti-union, 
anti-freedom,  pro-slavery  politics  in  the  State  of  Ten- 
nessee. If  the  Legislature  does  not  give  the  Negroes 
the  protection  of  the  elective  franchise,  it  will  not  be 
accorded  in  a  generation  without  riots,  and  perhaps 
serious  disturbance  of  the  peace  and  order  of  the 
State. 

Speaking  of  Governor  Brownlow,  he  is  in  very 
feeble  health,  and  I  shall  not  be  surprised  if  he  does 
not  live  long.  But  his  iron  will  and  his  inflexible 
loyalty  are  quite  as  evident  as  ever.  A  characteristic 
incident  occurred  the  other  day  at  the  State-house. 
Dr.  McFerrin,  on  his  return  from  Johnston's  army, 
called  upon  his  excellency.  The  governor,  recog- 
nizing him,  remarked,  "Well,  Mac,  you  know  what 
the  hymn  says, — 

"And  while  the  lamp  holds  out  to  burn 
The  vilest  sinner  may  return," — 

and  God  knozvs  you  fill  the  bill." 

The  governor,  in  his  correspondence  with  the 
president  of  the  East  Tennessee  and  Atlanta  Rail- 
road, who  proposed  to  return  the  road  to  the  gov- 
ernor for  the  stockholders,  after  wasting  and  injuring 
it  in  the  service  of  the  Confederacy,  recites  the  wrongs 


314      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

and  wickedness  of  the  disloyal,  rebellious  president 
and  stockholders,  and  assures  him  that,  instead  of  re- 
ceiving indemnity  from  the  State  of  Tennessee,  or 
from  the  Union,  for  damage  to  the  road  by  the  United 
States  military,  the  stock  of  disloyal  men  will  be  sunk 
for  the  repairs  the  road  may  need.  In  his  controversy 
with  Judge  Trigg,  the  governor  is  clearly  right,  and 
will  be  sustained. 

Nashville  is  a  queer  city.  It  has  a  very  fine  natural 
site.  Its  State-house  is  one  of  the  best,  if  not  the  best, 
in  the  Union.  Some  of  its  dwellings  are  elegant; 
many  of  them  are  small  and  unsightly.  Mrs.  Polk's 
residence  and  Mr.  Polk's  tomb  are  much  visited.  Her 
loyalty  is  said  to  be  slight.  Nashville  is  a  filthy  city. 
The  hotels  are  mean,  the  fare  indifferent,  and  the 
prices  exorbitant.  But  the  South,  free,  shall  yet  as- 
sume other  and  better  aspects,  and  this  city  may  yet 
rival  Cleveland,  in  Ohio,  or  Syracuse,  New  York,  for 
thrift  and  elegance.  Meanness,  affluence,  and  poverty, 
refinement  and  boorishness,  are  in  close  propinquity. 
An  incident  is  related  that  transpired  here  when  the 
news  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  assassination  was  received.  A 
female  rebel  was  exulting  over  the  event  in  hearing 
of  a  wounded  soldier  who  was  traveling  on  crutches. 
Seizing  one  of  them,  he  commenced  cudgeling  the 
virago,  who  fled  from  him  across  the  street.  As  he 
could  not  follow  her,  he  stooped  down  to  the  gutter, 
and  threw  mud  at  her,  soiling  her  costly  dress.  A 
man  came  to  the  soldier,  as  her  friend,  to  take  up  the 
quarrel  for  her.  The  soldier  drew  his  revolver,  and 
professed  his  readiness  to  settle  the  matter  then  and 
there.  The  defender  of  the  rebel  in  crinoline,  evi- 
dently deemed  discretion  the  better  part  of  valor,  and 
retired  from  the  contest.  OBSERVER, 

Nashvii,i,e,  Tenn.,  May  29,  1865. 


EDITORIAL   IN  ADVOCATE.  315 

The  following  editorial  in  the   Western  Chris- 
tian Advocate  for  June  14,  1865,  accompanied  my 
report  of  the  organization  of  the  Holston  Confer-  ' 
ence,  which  I  have  already  inserted  in  this  volume : 

THE  HOLSTON  CONFERENCE. 

We  again  consume  our  first  page  with  a  single  re- 
port, but  so  important  that  we  think  the  length  may 
well  be  excused.  By  one  means  and  another,  it  seems 
that,  all  through  the  border  region,  information  had 
been  given  of  a  proposed  reunion  of  the  two  great 
organizations,  North  and  South.  The  proceedings 
clearly  indicate  with  how  little  favor  the  proposition 
met.  Indeed,  we  are  assured  that  a  prospect  of  the  suc- 
cess of  any  such  measure  would  have  materially  affected 
it  not  defeated,  the  organization  of  the  Conference. 
We  can  now  see  clearly  that  there  was  no  needless 
delay  in  forming  this  Conference.  The  body  is  now 
twice  the  size  that  it  could  have  been  a  year  ago, 
and  starts  off  with  a  prestige  and  power  that  augur 
well  for  its  future.  Bishop  Clark  has  been  as  wise  in 
his  delay  as  he  has  been  outspoken  in  his  sentiments 
and  prompt  in  execution.  We  have  now  fifty  men 
in  that  field,  with  plenty  of  places  to  be  supplied, 
where  heroic  ministers  can  find  a  field  for  all  they 
will  do  and  endure.  Our  brethren  there  ought  to  have 
the  prayers  of  the  Church,  and  its  contributions,  too. 
We  adopt  them  heartily  as  our  brethren,  and  shall 
be  glad  to  make  the  Western  their  voice  to  the  uni- 
versal Church.  We  shall  yet  circulate  through  their 
territory,  and  labor  together  with  them  for  the  com- 
mon good  and  the  Redeemer's  glory.  Only  think 
of  a  North  Carolina  Circuit !  God  bless  the  preacher ! 
This   indicates   the   true   way   to   union.      Here   is  a 


316      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

theory,  and  practice  too.  Let  the  truly  loyal  anti- 
slavery  sentiment  of  the  South  unite  with  us,  and  let 
us  wait  for  the  others  till  they  can  see  their  folly.  There 
will  yet  be  but  one  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  from 
the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf,  from  ocean  to  ocean;  but  the 
vision  may  tarry.  Let  us  wait  for  it;  it  will  surely 
come;  it  will  not  tarry.  Not  one  word  of  bitterness 
for  any;  but  the  world  is  our  parish,  and  our  unre- 
stricted commission  is  to  preach  the  gospel  to  every 
creature.  Let  us  obey  the  Master,  and  our  glory  as 
a  Church,  our  numbers,  and  all  else,  will  take  care  of 
themselves.  Nothing  we  could  publish  would  be  more 
read  than  these  very  proceedings.  The  place  of  meet- 
ing, as  Bishop  Clark  states,  was  interesting  for  the 
reason  assigned ;  the  place  of  their  next  session  will 
be  scarcely  less  so  as  the  home  of  President  Johnson. 

I  traveled  the  Knoxville  District  the  first  four 
years  of  my  work  in  the  Holston  Conference.  The 
district  was  large.  It  required  travel  by  pike  for 
the  most  part.  The  country  was  traversed  by 
mountain  ranges  and  by  large  creeks  and  rivers, 
so  making  the  labors  of  the  incumbent  severe.  Yet 
the  loyal  people  were  kind  and  hospitable.  We 
had  some  precious  revivals  each  year  of  my  incum- 
bency on  that  district;  but  the  country  was  in  a 
distracted  condition.  The  rebels  were  coming  back 
to  their  old  homes,  and  the  loyal  boys  who  had 
worn  the  Blue  and  fought  under  the  flag  of  the 
Union,  and  who  remembered  the  way  the  Confed- 
erate authorities  had  treated  some  of  the  Union 
people  of  that  section  during  the  war,  did  not  treat 
them  very  hospitably.  The  Church  South  preach- 
ers were,  in  some  instances,  treated  very  roughly 


ON  THE  HOLSTON  DISTRICT.  317 

by  their  former  neighbors  and  acquaintances. 
They  were  whipped,  and  perhaps  otherwise  mal- 
treated. I  never  heard  of  any  of  them  being  tarred 
and  feathered,  although  this  might  have  been  done. 
They  were  shot  from  ambuscades.  All  this  tended 
to  hinder  the  gospel.  I  wrote  and  published  my 
deep  regret  at  this  violence  and  private  revenge 
as  being  demoralizing,  and  I  spoke  openly  and 
strongly  against  this  bloodthirsty  spirit.  I  scarcely 
ever  held  a  public  preaching  or  other  service  with- 
out opposing  violence  towards  any  person  for  past 
opinions  or  actions.  I  had  heard  that  Captain 
Sizemore — a  captain  in  the  Union  army — had 
threatened  to  kill  a  certain  presiding  elder  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  if  he  came 
about  near  him  attempting  to  preach  or  to  hold 
public  religious  services.  I  went  many  miles  out  of 
my  way  to  dissuade  him,  if  possible,  from  carrying 
his  threat  of  murder  into  effect.  I  spent  nearly  the 
whole  night  in  urging  him  not  to  use  any  violence, 
and  certainly  to  refrain  from  visiting  murderous 
violence  upon  the  presiding  elder  aforesaid,  as  it 
was  an  example  that  might  have  found  imitators 
in  dealing  with  loyal  Tennesseeans.  I  prevailed  on 
him  to  promise  me  that  he  would  not  molest  that 
presiding  elder  irT  his  work.  The  reason  he  as- 
signed for  his  purpose  to  shoot  the  Confederate 
presiding  elder  if  he  should  come  into  his  neighbor- 
hood was  this:  He  said  that  that  presiding  elder 
had  wantonly  caused  the  death  of  his  young 
brothers  while  he,  the  United  States  captain  in  the 
Union  service,  was  absent  from  his  home.     For  this 


3l8      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

conservative  position  I  fell  under  the  disapproba- 
tion of  many  loyalist  people  in  East  Tennessee,  and 
I  came  near  losing  mv  life  because  false  statements 
appeared  in  the  public  papers  incriminating  me, 
and  of  those  who  had  been  in  the  Confederate  serv- 
ice, for  my  alleged  complicity  with  the  molestation 
of  Southern  Methodist  preachers. 

I  had  occasion  to  attend  the  session  of  the  Hol- 
ston  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South,  in  Asheville,  North  Carolina,  in 
1866,  the  first  one  they  held  after  the  close  of  the 
war.  The  year  before  the  Conference  had  not  been 
held,  because  the  ministers  of  that  body  were  in 
the  rebel  lines.  I  was  set  upon  by  several  ruffians 
in  the  Conference  rooms,  who  sought  to  provoke 
me  into  a  wrangle,  and  then  take  my  life.  I  was 
informed,  when  I  narrated  the  facts  to  a  bookseller 
in  Asheville,  that  these  toughs  had  been  informed 
that  I  was  aiding  and  abetting  the  proscription  and 
abuse  of  Southern  preachers  in  East  Tennessee,  and 
that  this  was  the  cause  and  the  inspiration  of  the 
concerted  onslaught  made  upon  me.  I  was  fired 
upon  in  Knoxville  before  I  had  been  there  a  month, 
and  when  the  murderer  saw  I  did  not  fall,  he  ran 
away  as  fast  as  he  could.  The  way  I  came  to  be- 
lieve that  the  shot  was  intended  for  me,  was  because 
I  wore  a  peculiar  kind  of  hat,  unlike  all  others  worn 
in  Knoxville.  As  showing  the  animus  of  the  ex- 
Confederate  Methodists  in  the  Holston  country, 
this  incident  will  be  in  place.  I  went  up  on  a  freight 
train  from  Knoxville  to  hold  a  quarterly-meeting 
a  mile  or  two  back  from  the  railroad.     The  train 


EXPERIENCES.  3 1 9 

did  not  stop  at  the  station  called  Strawberry  Plains, 
but  some  half  mile  above  it.  The  night  was  very 
dark.  In  going  down  to  the  station,  I  fell  into  a 
cattle-guard,  and  seriously  wounded  myself.  The 
only  Methodist  living  there  whom  I  knew  was  a 
Mr. .  He  was  a  leading  member  of  the  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church,  South,  and  he  had  been 
an  active  sympathizer  and  worker  in  the  Confeder- 
ate cause.  I  think  he  had  been  in  the  Confederate 
army.  I  called  on  him  with  my  disfigured  and 
bleeding  face,  and  requested  him  to  lodge  me  and 
care  for  me  for  the  night.  This  was  refused,  and 
I  had  to  walk  in  darkness  and  over  a  strange  road 
two  miles  to  get  entertainment  and  care.  He  knew 
me  very  well,  and  his  was  the  only  residence  near 
the  station  affording  the  conveniences  and  care  I 
required.  I  told  him  my  situation,  and  said  that  I 
did  not  know  the  way  to  the  place  where  my  meet- 
ing was  to  be  held,  nor  the  name  of  any  one  there 
to  apply  to  for  lodging  and  care;  but  he  declined 
my  request  in  a  rude  and  brusque  manner. 

On  another  occasion  I  went  to  a  place  to  hold 
a  quarterly-meeting  on  Saturday  and  Sunday.  In 
that  neighborhood  there  were  quite  a  large  number 
of  ex-Confederates.  On  reaching  the  church,  a 
friend  took  me  aside,  and  informed  me  that  threats 
had  been  freely  made  in  the  community  that  I 
would  not  be  allowed  to  preach  there,  and  he  feared 
that  if  I  attempted  to  hold  a  meeting  there  I  would 
be  injured,  and  perhaps  killed.  I  thanked  him  for 
his  due  and  timely  warning;  but  stated  that  I  would 
hold  the  meeting  there,  whatever  the  personal  con- 


320     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

sequences  to  me  might  be.  I  entered  the  church 
and  kneeled  down  as  usual  to  offer  a  brief  prayer; 
and  then  I  stated  to  the  large  audience  assembled 
that  I  had  been  informed  that  I  would  not  be  al- 
lowed to  hold  a  religious  service  there;  but  that  I 
hoped  the  information  was  not  true.  I  had  no 
other  purpose  than  kindness  in  coming;  and  that 
freedom  of  speech  was  a  right  I  was  not  willing  to 
surrender.  I  should  hold  the  meeting  I  said,  and, 
if  molested,  I  was  prepared  to  defend  myself.  I 
displayed  my  revolver,  and  laid  it  down  before  me. 
I  then  proceeded  with  the  meeting  without  inter- 
ruption. I  received  many  anonymous  letters,  con- 
taining pictures  of  coffins  and  skulls  and  cross- 
bones,  and  warning  me  that  unless  I  left  that  section 
of  the  country  I  would  be  done  up  by  the  dagger, 
and  find  my  way  into  the  coffin  without  further 
notice.  These  missives  were  very  alarming  to  my 
wife;  and  yet  she  would  not  let  me  see  any  trepi- 
dation nor  apparent  alarm.  They  were  generally 
signed  "Ku-Klux." 

My  brother,  Rev.  William  Hall  Pearne,  was  en- 
gaged in  the  work  of  reconstruction  in  West  Ten- 
nessee at  the  same  time  that  I  was  operating  in  like 
lines  in  East  Tennessee.  He  informed  me  that  he 
repeatedly  received  Ku-Klux  letters,  and  that  he 
never  referred  to  them,  so  that  the  senders  could 
know  his  thought  or  feeling  in  regard  to  them. 
On  one  occasion  his  train  was  held  up  by  the  Ku- 
Klux.  He  had  that  day  shaved  off  his  mustache, 
and  he  thinks  his  life  was  saved  because  of  that  fact. 
He  said  the  men  who  came  into  the  sleeper  where 


SOUTHERN  SENTIMENT.  32 1 

he  was  lying,  drew  aside  the  curtains,  and  ex-' 
amined  every  cot  and  the  occupant.  When  they 
came  to  him  he  feigned  sleep,  and  they  did  not 
waken  him.  The  porter  told  him  afterwards  that 
he  heard  them  say  the  Northern  minister  they  were 
in  search  of  wore  a  mustache ;  but  that  as  there 
was  no  one  in  the  sleeper  who  had  a  mustache,  the 
man  they  were  after  they  were  unable  to  find,  and 
he  probably  had  not  taken  that  'train,  as  they  had 
supposed.  The  passengers  were  not  further  mo- 
lested ;  and  after  the  sleeper  had  been  searched,  the 
train  was  permitted  to  proceed.  Incidents  of  that 
nature  are  not  particularly  reassuring  to  the  vic- 
tims of  such  treatment.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
day  for  conduct  so  barbarous  has  gone  by  forever 
in  our  country.  It  was  designed  to  frighten  the 
colored  people,  and  to  put  Northerners,  who,  for 
any  reason,  might  be  obnoxious  to  them,  in  such 
dread  that  they  would  leave  that  section  of  the 
country.  In  repeated  instances  white  persons  were 
subjected  to  brutal  treatment,  and  were  driven 
away  by  their  terrific  methods. 

In  1867  I  went  down  to  Atlanta,  to  attend  a 
meeting  of  the  Georgia  Conference.  I  was  return- 
ing from  meeting  on  Sunday  morning  to  my  hotel, 
and  met  a  man  and  a  woman  who  seemed  to  want 
to  show  a  hostile  spirit  towards  me  as  a  Northerner. 
As  I  was  about  to  pass  them  they  crowded  as  far 
from  me  as  possible,  and  the  woman  said  to  her 
companion,  in  a  loud  and  whining  voice:  "I  've  no 
patience  with  the  Northern  people,  who  come  down 
here  where  they  are  not  wanted;  let  them  stay  in 


322      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

the  country  where  they  belong."  As  though  he 
did  not  hear  her,  but  really  because  he  wanted  the 
affront  repeated,  he  said,  ''What  did  you  say?" 
She  piped  out  the  same  remark.  When  I  saw  her 
evident  effort  to  put  distance  between  her  and  my- 
self, I  was  strongly  templed  to  blow  my  nose  sig- 
nificantly, and  then,  too,  came  the  impulse  to  resent 
the  insult  by  some  stinging  remark ;  but  I  had  the 
grace  to  keep  silent.  If  I  had  made  any  sign,  or 
spoken  any  word  which  would  have  been  severe 
or  sarcastic,  the  Southern  press  would  probably 
have  made  a  sensational  and  scandalous  note  upon 
the  affair,  charged  me  with  some  indecent  or  out- 
rageous allegation  of  my  maltreatment  of  a  lady 
in  Georgia,  and  I  could  not  have  sent  telegrams 
fast  enough  to  set  myself  right  against  her  story  of 
wrong  and  violence. 

The  use  of  tobacco  was  very  general.  Not  only 
the  men  used  it  by  smoking  and  chewing  it,  but 
the  women  as  well.  Not  only  the  boys  chewed  and 
smoked,  but  the  girls  and  young  women  also  did. 
The  women,  many  of  them,  were  snuff-dippers. 
They  would  chew  the  end  of  a  stick,  and  when  the 
part  so  chewed  was  soft  and  wet  with  their  saliva, 
they  would  dip  it  into  snuff,  and  then  lay  the  stick, 
full  of  snuff,  into  their  mouths.  This  stimulated 
the  saliva,  and  the  expectoration  of  the  snuff-dip- 
pers was  far  more  excessive  than  that  of  the  men. 
I  would  hold  quarterly-meetings  in  East  Tennessee, 
where  the  amen  corner  occupied  by  the  women 
would  seem  clean  and  sweet  enough  when  the 
meeting  began,  and  the  women  could  kneel  on  the 


TOBACCO    USING.  323 

hardened  tobacco  spittle  without  soiling  their  silk 
dresses ;  but  after  the  meeting  had  lasted  one  or  two 
days,  no  persons  could  kneel  there  without  ruining 
their  dresses  or  clothes.  I  have  seen  young  ladies 
bite  off  the  mouth  end  of  their  cigars,  and  request 
the  lighted  cigar  then  being  smoked,  with  which  to 
light  their  cigars,  and  the  same  is  true  of  cigarettes. 
The  old-fashioned  large  families  of  the  earlier 
days  of  our  Republic  are  still  seen  quite  frequently 
in  the  South.  As  a  rule,  the  families  are  large.  I 
ate  a  Thanksgiving  dinner  in  East  Tennessee  with 
a  most  remarkable  family.  The  husband  was  not 
much,  if  any,  above  fifty,  and  the  wife  was  not  over 
forty-five,  with  her  youngest  child  yet  unweaned. 
And  these  persons  were  the  parents  of  twenty-four 
children,  and  of  several  grandchildren.  They  were 
all  present  on  the  occasion  named.  Apparently  in 
perfect  health,  they  were  robust,  vigorous,  and  stal- 
wart. The  people  of  East  Tennessee  were  very 
earnest  and  pronounced  in  their  religious  life. 
They  were  demonstrative.  They  were  not  timid, 
nor  backward  in  making  manifest  their  rapturous 
shouts  and  hallelujahs.  It  is  refreshing  to  witness 
their  zeal  for  the  Master,  and  the  matter-of-fact 
way  in  which  they  live  their  religion.  They  dis- 
play much  sensibility.     They  are  quite  emotional. 


Ftrarllr  ¥ mnri. 

As  United  States  Consul. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

MY  appointment  as  United  States  consul  came 
about  in  this  way.  I  was  under  very  severe 
strain  during  my  five  years  of  toil  in  reconstruction 
work  in  the  South.  My  nervous  system  and  my 
digestive  organs  gave  way  under  the  pressure.  I 
ran  down  in  flesh  and  in  strength,  until  the  impair- 
ment became  very  serious.  The  physician  pro- 
nounced me  incurable,  unless,  by  a  change  of  cli- 
mate and  a  sea  voyage  and  absolute  rest,  the  decay 
could  be  arrested.  Senator  Brownlow  procured  my 
appointment  to  the  consulate  at  Kingston,  Jamaica, 
by  President  Grant.  The  appointment  was  im- 
mediately confirmed  by  the  United  States  Senate. 
As  an  experiment,  I  took  passage  at  New  York 
on  a  schooner,  and  I  was  upon  the  sea  nearly  three 
weeks.  During  the  voyage  I  became  so  much 
worse,  that  it  seemed  unlikely  that  I  should  live 
to  reach  the  island.  I  made  all  possible  prepara- 
tions for  the  event,  and  gave  the  paper  of  directions 
for  the  captain's  action  when  the  vessel  should  ar- 
rive at  Kingston,  if  in  the  meantime  I  should  die 
at  sea.  Providentially  rny  life  was  spared.  As 
soon  as  I  landed  I  called  a  physician,  who  pro- 
nounced me  curable.  His  prescriptions  were  few 
and  simple.  They  were  strictly  followed.  In  a  few 
weeks  an  improvement  was  obvious.  In  a  short 
time  it  was  apparent  that  the  climate  and  the  rest, 
together  with  the  treatment,  would  result  in  re- 

327 


328     SIXTY- ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

covery.  I  returned  by  steamer  for  my  family,  and 
we  were  soon  domiciled  in  my  new  field,  learning 
the  details  of  the  office,  and  arranging  for  my  offi- 
cial consular  residence  in  Kingston. 

There  is  no  secular  calling  which  a  minister 
could  follow  that  is  less  objectionable  than  that  of 
a  consul  of  the  United  States.  On  the  application 
of  the  Secretary  of  State,  through  the  United  States 
Legation  at  the  Court  of  St.  James,  in  London,  an 
exequatur  was  given  by  the  Queen  of  England,  au- 
thorizing my  official  residence  in  Kingston,  Ja- 
maica, as  a  consul  of  the  United  States,  so  long  as 
my  conduct  should  meet  the  approbation  of  the 
British  Colonial  Government  and  that  of  Great 
Britain.  The  duties  are  light.  They  would  not 
require  more  than  an  average  of  an  hour's  time  for 
each  secular  day,  if  they  could  be  regularly  dis- 
tributed ;  but  sometimes  there  would  be  a  rush,  and 
there  would  be  crowded  into  three  or  four  days 
work  enough  for  a  week,  and  then  there  would  be 
an  idle  period  of  two  or  three  weeks,  when  there 
would  be  absolutely  nothing  to  do. 

The  duties  of  the  consulate  relate  almost  ex- 
clusively to  maritime  affairs — the  care  of  American 
ships  which  come  into  port.  The  vessels  arriving 
require  to  be  officially  certified  by  the  consul,  and 
he  gives  them,  when  leaving,  a  clearance  certificate. 
The  American  seamen  in  a  foreign  port  are  under 
the  care  of  the  American  consul.  Complaints  of 
ill-treatment  are  looked  into  by  him.  Sick  seamen 
are  sent  to  a  hospital,  and  proper  nursing  and  care, 
clothing  and  board,  are  furnished  by  the  United 


DUTIES  OF  A    CONSUL.  329 

States  for  all  destitute  American  sailors  arriving 
in  American  or  in  foreign  vessels  into  the  consular 
port.     Ship's  dues  are  paid  into  the  consulate  for. 
the  Seamen's  Relief  Fund,  and  the  consul  is  the 
official  guardian  of  all  American  sailors  while  in 
port.     If  the  vessel  has  been  impaired  by  weather 
or  other  misadventure,  the  consul  may  appoint  a 
Board  of  Survey,  who  shall  determine  whether  any, 
and,  if  any,  what  repairs  shall  be  put  upon  the  dis- 
abled ship ;  and  whether  the  vessel  is  seaworthy  or 
otherwise.     All  this  is  necessary  for  the  protection 
of  American   shipowners  and  underwriters.     The 
consul  charges  certain   specified  fees  for  consular 
service  of  any  kind,  and  these  are  paid  by  the  ship, 
or  by  consignees  or  consignors  of  the  vessel.     In 
addition  to  these  duties,  the  consul  would  naturally 
be  expected  to  look  after  any  American  citizens 
sojourning  in  the  island  for  a  longer  or  shorter 
time.     He  has  no  funds  at  his  disposal  to  relieve 
destitute    Americans   in    port;    but    he    would,    of 
course,  give  them  such  needed  attention  and  coun- 
sel as  he  might  find  practicable. 

The  salary  of  the  consul  at  Jamaica  was  two 
thousand  dollars  per  annum.  The  perquisites  were 
notarial  fees  for  such  extra  copies  of  official  papers 
as  might  be  demanded  by  shippers  or  consignees 
or  consignors,  and  also  captains  or  others.  These 
might  amount  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  per 
year.  In  addition  to  notarial  fees,  the  consul  has 
the  power  to  appoint  consular  agents  in  other  ship- 
ping ports  of  the  island  besides  his  own  port,  one- 
half  of  the  fees  of  which  go  to  the  consular  agents, 


330     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

and  the  other  half  to  the  consul  as  perquisites. 
There  were  seven  ports  of  entry  on  the  island,  and 
I  appointed  to  these  consular  agents.  The  fees 
from  them  amounted  to  several  hundred  dollars. 
All  of  them  increased  the  salary  of  the  consul  per- 
haps nearly  or  quite  one  thousand  dollars.  In  the 
event  of  serious  injury  to  an  American  ship  coming 
into  port,  the  Board  of  Survey  appointed  and  the 
necessary  processes  required  involve  considerable 
expense.  But  all  the  service  demanded  is  furnished 
at  the  expense  of  the  shipowners  or  consignees  for 
original  copies,  which  belong  to  the  office  of  the 
consulate.  Then  if  certified  copies  are  demanded, 
these  are  paid  for  as  notarial  fees. 

Sometimes,  as  the  result  of  a  survey,  the  ship  is 
condemned  as  unseaworthy,  in  which  case  the  ship 
is  sold  for  the  benefit  of  all  concerned.  It  some- 
times happens  that  collusion  between  the  captain 
and  the  consignee  is  suspected  or  charged.  Then 
the  case  becomes  seriously  complicated.  Not  sel- 
dom, in  such  an  event,  suits  are  entered  against  the 
suspected  parties  by  the  owners  or  underwriters. 
In  my  consulate  I  found  an  American  captain,  who 
had  been  sued  and  cast  into  prison.  He  had  been 
confined  there  for  over  a  year,  at  his  own  cost  for 
board  and  expenses.  After  considerable  corre- 
spondence and  delay  I  procured  his  release,  and  he 
was  returned  to  his  own  country. 

During  my  consulate  many  of  the  natives  of 
Cuba  were,  as  they  are  now,  struggling  for  their 
independence  against  the  tyranny  of  Spain.  Sym- 
pathizers in  the  United  States  would  assist  them, 


THE  STEAMER    VIRGIN! US.  33 1 

and  furnish  them  transportation  of  war  supplies  and 
ammunition.  American  steamers  would  come  to 
Kingston  for  shipping  supplies,  or  for  refuge,  and 
obtaining  these,  or  perhaps  finding  Kingston  a  safe 
harbor  or  refuge  from  pursuit  by  Spanish  cruisers, 
they  would  remain  in  my  port  for  weeks.  The 
Edgar  Stuart,  a  small  steamer,  was  several  times 
in  the  harbor  of  Kingston,  Jamaica,  and  remained 
there  for  longer  or  shorter  periods.  In  the  autumn 
of  1873,  the  steamer  Virginias  also  came  into  my 
port  for  escape  from  Spanish  pursuers.  The  cap- 
tain was  chased  into  our  waters  by  a  Spanish  war- 
vessel.  The  captain  was  so  sorely  beset,  and  his 
escape  from  capture  was  so  narrow,  that  on  his  ar- 
rival he  forsook  his  vessel,  and  made  his  way  back 
to  the  United  States  by  English  steamer  to  Aspin- 
wall,  and  thence  by  the  Pacific  Steam  Navigation 
lines  to  New  York.  I  found  the  ship  was  duly 
registered  as  an  American  vessel,  although  her  his- 
tory was  not  altogether  regular  and  assuring.  Dur- 
ing our  late  Civil  War  the  Virginias  was  engaged 
in  running  the  blockade  of  the  Southern  ports.  On 
one  of  her  trips  she  was  captured  by  the  blockaders, 
and  condemned  as  a  prize  by  the  Government. 
After  the  war  she  was  sold  in  the  port  of  Mobile, 
February,  1866;  but  shortly  afterwards  she  was 
again  acquired  by  the  United  States.  In  1870  she 
was  resold  to  John  F.  Patterson.  Patterson  was 
reputed  to  have  been  an  agent  of  the  Carlist  rebel- 
lion in  Cuba.  It  was  alleged  that  he  purchased 
the  Virginius  for  the  sake  of  Ouesada  and  Bam- 
betta,  well-known  Cuban  patriots.     Bambetta  was 


332     SIXTY-ONE   YEARS  OF  ITINERANT  WORK. 

a  passenger  on  the  ill-fated  ship  when  captured,  and 
he  was  the  first  one  shot  at  Santiago.  Patterson 
obtained  an  American  register  from  the  port  of 
New  Orleans,  duly  authenticated  by  United  States 
officials.  In  1870  she  sailed  from  New  York,  with 
the  right,  as  against  all  other  nations,  to  carry  the 
American  flag.  When  she  sailed  she  cleared  for  a 
port  in  the  Caribbean  Sea,  to  which  she  went.  She 
did  not  appear  ever  to  have  regularly  cleared  from 
any  port  in  the  United  States.  The  capture  of  the 
captain,  Joseph  Fry,  Bambetto,  and  many  others  of 
the  crew  and  passengers  followed. 

As  the  Virginius  was  left  in  the  port  of  Jamaica 
without  a  captain,  it  became  my  duty  to  appoint 
a  commander  of  the  ship  upon  the  nomination  of 
the  consignees  of  the  vessel.  The  law  required, 
however,  that  he  must  be  an  American  citizen,  and 
of  experience  and  nautical  ability  and  skill  to  navi- 
gate a  ship  safely  over  the  seas  of  the  world.  Cap- 
tain Fry  was  in  Kingston  at  the  time,  and  he  was 
often  in  the  consulate.  During  this  time  the 
United  States  frigate  Tennessee,  a  war  steamer,  was 
in  port ;  and  at  one  time  when  he  was  present  the 
commander  and  some  of  the  officers  of  the  Ten- 
nessee came  into  my  office,  and  I  introduced  them 
to  Captain  Fry.  Their  greeting  was  respectful; 
but  not  apparently  very  cordial.  They  spoke  of 
having  known  Captain  Fry  when  he  was  an  officer 
in  the  United  States  navy.  After  they  retired,  Cap- 
tain Fry  wept  freely  over  the  great  mistake  he  had 
made  in  resigning  from  the  naval  service  of  the 
Republic,  and  in  accepting  a  place  in  the  Confed- 


CAPTAIN  FRY'S  LAST  LETTER.  333 

erate  navy.  "What  a  fool  I  was,"  said  he;  "I  could 
have  been  in  a  good  position,  honored  and  comfort- 
able; but  I  lost  all  that,  and  now  I  am  poor  and 
forsaken."  He  was  nominated  by  the  consignees 
of  the  Virginias  to  be  appointed  to  her  command. 
I  told  them  that  I  thought  he  was  lawfully  in- 
eligible, for  the  law  requires  that  masters  of  Ameri- 
can ships  should  be  American  citizens,  and  I  sup- 
posed he  had  lost  his  American  citizenship  by  en- 
gaging in  the  service  of  the  Confederacy;  but  he 
submitted  to  me  his  pardon  papers  from  President 
Andrew  Johnson,  which  restored  him  to  citizen- 
ship. After  some  expostulations  with  him  in  view 
of  the  dangers  he  incurred,  and  the  sufferings  his 
family  might  be  obliged  to  endure  if  mishap  at- 
tended his  sailing,  I  appointed  him  captain  of  the 
Virginius.  He  said  he  had  considered  it  all,  and 
yet  he  must  take  the  risks  involved  to  gain  bread 
for  his  wife  and  children.  His  case  was  very  pa- 
thetic. I  felt  great  sympathy  for  him,  and  when  I 
learned  that  he  had  been  captured  and  shot  the 
news  deeply  affected  me.  His  bearing  during  his 
trial  and  execution  was  honorable.  He  personally 
shook  hands  and  said  farewell  to  his  comrades  of 
the  ship.  Before  his  execution,  he  addressed  the 
'following  letter  to  his  wife : 

CAPTAIN  FRY'S  FAREWELL  LETTER  TO  HIS  WIFE. 

On  Board  the  Spanish  Man-of-War  Tornado,  | 
Santiago  de  Cuba,  November  6, 1873.      \ 

Dear,  Dear  DiTa, — When  I  left  you  I  had  no 
idea  that  we  should  never  meet  again  in  this  world ; 
but  it  seems  strange  to  me  that   I  should  to-night, 


334     SIXTY- ONE   YEARS  OF  ITINERANT  WORK. 

and  on  Annie's  birthday,  be  calmly  seated,  on  a  beau- 
tiful moonlight  night,  in  a  most  beautiful  bay  in  Cuba, 
to  take  my  last  leave  of  you,  my  own  dear,  sweet  wife, 
and,  with  the  thought  of  your  own  bitter  anguish — 
my  only  regret  at  leaving. 

I  have  been  tried  to-day,  and  the  president  of 
the  court-martial  asked  the  favor  of  embracing  me 
at  parting,  and  clasped  me  to  his  heart.  I  have  shaken 
hands  with  each  of  my  judges,  and  the  secretary  of 
the  court  and  the  interpreter  have  promised  me,  as 
an  especial  favor,  to  attend  my  execution,  which  will, 
I  am  told,  be  within  a  few  hours  after  my  sentence 
is  pronounced. 

I  am  told  my  death  will  be  painless.  In  short, 
I  have  had  a  very  cheerful  and  pleasant  chat  about 
my  funeral,  to  which  I  shall  go  a  few  hours  from  now ; 
how  soon,  I  can  not  say  yet.  It  is  curious  to  see 
how  I  make  friends.  Poor  Bambetta  pronounced  me 
a  gentleman,  and  he  was  the  brightest  and  bravest 
creature  I  ever  saw. 

The  priest  who  gave  me  communion  on  board  this 
morning,  put  a  double  scapular  around  my  neck,  and 
a  medal,  which  he  intends  to  wear  himself.  A  young 
Spanish  officer  brought  me  a  bright,  new  silk  badge, 
with  the  Blessed  Virgin  stamped  upon  it,  to  wear 
to  my  execution  for  him,  and  a  handsome  cross,  in 
some  fair  lady's  handiwork.  They  are  to  be  kept  as 
relics  of  me.  He  embraced  me  affectionately  in  his 
room,  with  tears  in  his  eyes. 

Dear  sweetheart,  you  will  be  able  to  bear  it  for 
my  sake,  for  I  will  be  with  you  if  God  permits.  Al- 
though I  know  my  hours  are  short  and  few,  I  am 
not  sad.  I  shall  be  with  you  right  soon,  dear  Dita, 
and  you  will  not  be  afraid  of  me.  Pray  for  me,  and 
I  will  pray  with  you.  There  is  to  be  a  fearful  sacrifice 
of  life,  as  I  think,  from  the  Virginius,  and,  as  I  think, 


THE  SPANISH  DIFFICULTY.  335 

a  needless  one,  as  the  poor  people  are  unconscious 
of  crime,  and  even  of  their  fate  up  to  now.  I  hope 
God  will  forgive  me  if  I  am  to  blame  for  it. 

If  you  write  to  President  Grant  he  will  probably  or- 
der my  pay,  due  when  1  resigned,  to  be  paid  to  you 
after  my  death.  People  will  be  kinder  to  you  now, 
dear  Dita;  at  least  I  hope  so.  Do  not  dread  death 
when  it  comes  to  you.  It  will  be  God's  angel  of  rest — 
remember  this.  I  hope  my  children  will  forget  their 
father's  harshness,  and  remember  his  love  and  anxiety 
for  them.     May  they  practice  regularly  their  religion, 

and  pray  for  him  always.    Tell the  last  act  of 

my  life  will  be  a  public  profession  of  my  faith  and 
hope  in  Him  of  whom  we  need  not  be  ashamed ;  and 
it  is  not  honest  to  withhold  that  public  acknowledg- 
ment from  any  false  modesty  or  timidity.  May  God 
bless  and  save  us  all !  Sweet,  dear,  dear  Dita,  we  will 
soon  meet  again.     Till  then,  adieu  for  the  last  time. 

Your  devoted  husband,  Joseph  Fry. 

The  following  article  on  the  subject  of  the  Vir- 
ginius  and  our  strained  relations  with  Spain  ap- 
peared in  the  Western  Christian  Advocate,  Decem- 
ber 31,  1873: 

THE  SPANISH  DIFFICULTY. 

The  war  fever  against  Spain  on  account  of  the 
Virgimus  affair  has  entirely  subsided.  The  Fish-Polo 
protocol  has  been  promptly  and  honorably  carried 
out  by  the  Spanish  Government.  The  Virginius  has 
been  returned,  and  the  remaining  passengers  and  crew 
have  been  surrendered.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  the  remaining  provisions  of  the  treaty  will  also 
be  observed.    All  this  is  matter  for  congratulation. 

In  the  meantime,  upon  the  showing  of  the  case 
before  him,  the  Attorney-General  has  transmitted  to 


336      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

the  Secretary  of  State  his  written  opinion  upon  the 
questions,  whether  or  not  the  Virginius,  at  the  time 
of  her  capture  by  the  Tornado,  was  improperly,  and 
without  right,  carrying  the  American  flag.  Referring 
to  the  provisions  of  our  laws  as  to  the  ownership  and 
registry  of  American  vessels,  the  Attorney-General 
finds  that  the  registry  of  the  Virginius  was  fraudulently 
obtained ;  that,  instead  of  being  owned  by  Americans, 
as  the  law  requires,  the  ship  was,  in  fact,  owned  by 
foreigners ;  that  only  by  false  swearing  was  a  registry 
obtained ;  and,  moreover,  that  the  usual  bond  required 
in  such  cases  was  defective  in  having  no  sureties  upon 
it.  At  the  same  time,  the  Attorney-General  main- 
tains "that  she  was  as  much  exempt  from  interfer- 
ence on  the  high  seas  by  another  power,  upon  that 
ground,  as  though  she  had  been  lawfully  registered." 
The  right  of  Spain  to  capture  a  vessel  of  American 
register,  and  carrying  the  American  flag,  if  found  in 
her  waters,  assisting,  or  endeavoring  to  assist,  the  insur- 
rection in  Cuba,  is  admitted  by  the  Attorney-General, 
who  says :  "But  she  has  no  right  to  capture  such  a 
vessel  on  the  high  seas,  upon  an  apprehension  that,  in 
violation  of  the  neutrality  or  navigation  law  of  the 
United  States,  she  was  on  her  way  to  assist  said  re- 
bellion. Spain  may  defend  her  territory  and  people 
from  the  hostile  attack  of  what  is,  or  appears  to  be, 
an  American  vessel;  but  she  has  no  jurisdiction  what- 
ever over  the  question  as  to  whether  or  not  such 
vessel  is  on  the  high  seas  in  violation  of  any  law  of 
the  United  States.  Spain  can  not  rightfully  raise  that 
question  as  to  the  Virginius;  but  the  United  States 
may,  and,  if  I  understand  the  protocol,  they  have 
agreed  to  do  it,  and  be  governed  by  that  agreement ; 
and,  without  admitting  that  Spain  would  otherwise 
have  any  interest  in  the  question,  I  decide  that  the 


SEIZURE    OF   THE    VIRGINIUS.  337 

Virginias,  at  the  time  of  her  capture,  was,  without 
right  and  improperly,  carrying  the  American  flag." 

The  opinion  of  the  Attorney-General  as  to  the 
wrongfulness  of  the  seizure  of  the  Virginius  upon  the 
high  seas  is  so  fully  in  accordance  with  international 
law,  as  held  by  nearly  all  civilized  Governments,  in- 
cluding Spain,  that  we  can  not  see  how  it  can  be 
successfully  called  into  question.  The  fraud  in  pro- 
curing the  register  of  the  Virginius,  and  the  unright- 
ful carrying  of  the  United  States  flag,  were  offenses, 
not  against  Spanish  law,  but  against  American  law. 
Of  such  offenses,  not  Spain,  but  the  United  States, 
is  to  be  the  trier  and  punisher.  To  allow  for  a  moment 
that,  under  the  apprehension  that  the  Virginius  had 
not  regular  papers,  and  did  not  lawfully  carry  the 
American  flag,  Spain  had  the  right  to  seize  her  upon 
the  high  seas,  adjudge,  and  condemn  her,  is  utterly 
absurd.  Such  an  admission  as  to  any  foreign  power 
whatever,  would  place  our  commerce,  our  citizens, 
and  their  property,  at  the  mercy  or  the  caprice  of 
any  meddlesome  Government  which,  with  or  without 
reason,  might  choose  to  annoy  us.  The  American 
flag,  when  the  right  to  carry  it  is  covered  by  the 
usual  papers,  entitles  the  vessel  so  bearing  it  to  as 
much  immunity  from  assault  as  the  soil  of  the  United 
States  is  entitled  to  freedom  from  invasion  by  a  for- 
eign power.  To  all  legal  intents,  the  deck  of  an  Amer- 
ican ship  is  American  soil.  Spain  has  no  more  right 
to  invade  that  soil  on  the  deck  of  an  American  ship 
when  in  neutral  waters  than  she  would  have  to  invade 
New  York  or  Baltimore.  It  is  granted  that  incon- 
venience may  sometimes  result  by  vessels  procuring 
papers  by  fraud,  but  not  half  the  wrong  and  injury 
which  the  admission  of  tlje  right  of  search  and  seiz- 
ure  upon   the   high   seas   would    work.     The   illegal 


338     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

bearing  of  the  United  States  flag  is  a  violation  of 
American  law.  When  the  United  States  Government 
is  unable  to  compel  the  observance  of  its  own  laws, 
or  to  punish  their  violation,  it  may  choose  a  guardian, 
and  ask  for  assistance.  Until  our  Government  reaches 
that  unhappy  condition,  the  assumption  that  Spain 
may  adjudicate  for  the  United  States  is  simply 
monstrous. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

THE  war  steam-frigate  Tennessee  was  sent  by 
President  Grant  to  Samana  Bay,  in  the  island 
of  St.  Domingo,  with  a  select  company,  acting  as 
a  Commission,  to  make  observations  in  that  bay, 
and  learn  whether  or  not  the  President  had  vio- 
lated any  law,  or  had  compromised  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  in  his  administration  of 
the  affairs  of  that  grant  from  the  Haytians  of  the 
use  of  the  bay  as  a  coaling  station.  The  persons 
composing  that  Commission  included,  Manton 
Marble,  of  the  New  York  World;  A.  D.  White,  of 
the  Cornell  University;  Frederick  Douglass;  Sena- 
tor B.  F.  Wade,  of  Ohio;  and  perhaps  others. 
Bishop  Arthur  Cleveland  Coxe,  of  the  Western 
Diocese  of  New  York,  was  a  passenger  from  Hayti 
to  New  York  by  that  vessel,  as  I  now.  remember. 
The  ship  remained  in  Kingston  Harbor  a  week  or 
more. 

An  incident  connected  with  Frederick  Douglass 
interested  me  somewhat.  On  Saturday,  as  we  were 
riding  about  Kingston,  Mr.  Douglass  inquired  of 
me  where  he  could  study  the  question  of  color- 
caste  to  the  best  advantage.  I  told  him  Wesley 
Chapel,  and  I  tendered  him  the  use  of  my  pew  in 
that  church,  explaining  that,  as  I  was  to  preach  in 
another  Wesleyan  church  on  that  day,  I  regretted 
my  necessary  absence  from  Wesley ;  but  telling  him 
to  inquire  of  the  janitor  for  the  American  consul's 

339 


340     SIXTY- ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

pew,  and  to  occupy  that,  because  from  that  he 
would  have  a  good  view  of  the  situation.  The  next 
day  after,  I  was  with  him  again.  He  said  he  was 
delighted  with  his  attendance  at  Wesley.  There 
was  a  congregation  of  twenty-five  hundred  or 
more.  The  seats  were  occupied  by  the  same  fam- 
ily; the  white  father  at  one  end  of  the  pew,  and  a 
black  wife  at  the  other  end,  with  the  children  be- 
tween them  of  various  shades  of  mahogany;  and 
vice  versa,  the  black  father  at  the  one  end  of  the 
line,  and  a  blue-eyed  English  blonde  at  the  other. 
He  said  the  singing,  led  by  a  powerful  organ  and 
a  chorus  of  two  thousand  sweet  voices,  more  re- 
sembled his  ideal  of  heaven  than  any  other  he  had 
ever  had.  ■  As  for  the  mingling  of  bloods  and  of 
races,  he  described  it  as  a  mingling  together  of 
pepper  and  salt  all  over  the  house.  "Why,"  said 
he,  "there  was  not  the  faintest  scent  of  color-caste 
about  it." 

I  greatly  admired  Bishop  Coxe.  He  was  gen- 
ial, frank,  refined,  intellectual,  and  intelligent,  and, 
withal,  a  man  of  large  catholicity.  His  father  was 
Rev.  Samuel  Hanson  Cox,  the  once  renowned 
celebrity  of  Brooklyn,  as  a  Calvinistic  divine  of  the 
Presbyterian  denomination ;  and  yet  his  son  was  an 
Arminian  in  doctrine  and  of  prelatical  Church  pro- 
clivities. This  he  explained  by  saying  that  his 
mother  was  a  Church  woman  of  pronounced  Armin- 
ian views.  He  expressed  a  high  respect  for  the 
ministers  and  work  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  He  said  they  were  providentially  God's 
great  breakwater  to  save  this  country  from  going 


MY  RESIDENCE   IN  JAMAICA.  34 1 

through  Unitarianism,  as  a  half-way  house,  into 
open  infidelity.  Long  before  he  was  elected  a 
bishop,  when  he  was  rector  of  a  wealthy  Church 
in  Baltimore,  he  had  planted  a  mission  in  Santo 
Domingo,  which  he  had  ever  since  maintained,  and 
to  which  he  had  been  accustomed  to  go  as  often 
as  once  in  a  year,  or  once  in  two  years,  to  study 
the  growth  and  the  work  of  that  Christian  plant, 
which  he  had  established  among  the  blacks  of  that 
island. 

My  residence  of  three  years  in  Jamaica  with 
my  family  afforded  me  very  great  pleasure.  I  trav- 
eled with  my  family  all  over  the  island,  preached 
and  made  addresses  in  all  the  chief  cities  and  towns, 
shared  in  the  generous  hospitality  of  the  people, 
recovered  my  health,  and  I  have  ever  since  held  in 
delightful  remembrance  my  three  years  of  sojourn 
as  a  consul  in  that  "beautiful  isle  of  the  sea."  It 
would  be  an  almost  criminal  omission  not  to  speak 
of  my  relations  with  the  Wesleyan  ministers  and 
their  familes,  who  made  us  welcome  to  their  homes 
and  chapels,  and  to  the  quarterly-meetings  and 
breakfasts  and  teas,  which  were  quite  frequent — 
Rev.  George  Sargeant,  the  chairman  of  the  district; 
Samuel  Smyth,  Henry  Bunting,  George  Geddes, 
and  many  others.  William  West  succeeded  George 
Sargeant  as  chairman  of  the  district.  He  was  a 
veteran  who  had  seen  much  service  on  the  gold 
coast  of  Africa.  He  and  the  other  Wesleyan  min- 
isters and  official  laymen  united  in  a  beautiful  and 
highly  appreciated  testimonial,  expressing  their  re- 
spect and  esteem  for  me,  as  did  also  the  Masonic 


342      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

bodies  of  Kingston.  My  relations  with  the  min- 
isters of  other  denominations  were  very  pleasant 
and  enjoyable. 

I  must  not  fail  to  speak  of  John  Martin,  prin- 
cipal for  many  years  of  the  Lady  Mico  School — 
a  normal  school  for  the  training  of  teachers.  He 
was  a  fine  scholar,  and  a  wise  and  successful  gov- 
ernor and  teacher  in  the  institution  of  that  name  in 
Kingston.  I  am  not  sure  that,  he  graduated ;  yet  I 
think  he  did.  Upon  my  representation,  the  Athens 
College  conferred  on  him  the  degree  of  LL.  D., 
a  dignity  and  honor  which  he  richly  deserved. 

These  recollections  of  the  three  years  of  my 
stay  in  Jamaica  will  always  be  a  green  oasis  in  the 
memories  of  life.  I  give  the  principal  facts  which 
I  learned  of  its  history  and  condition,  for  the  enter- 
tainment and  instruction  of  my  readers. 

Jamaica  is  an  interesting  island,  whether  viewed 
as  to  its  history,  population,  climate,  soil,  or  pro- 
ductions. Lying  adjacent  to  our  Republic,  under 
the  very  shadow  of  our  country,  and  within  four 
or  five  days  of  steamboat  sail  of  our  chief  Atlantic 
seaports,  she  is  related  to  us  by  important  present 
and  prospective  conditions. 

Except  the  Bahama  Islands,  all  the  West  India 
islands  are  sometimes  called  the  Antilles.  Those 
forming,  like  a  string  of  pearls,  the  eastern  boun- 
dary of  the  Caribbean  Sea,  are  called  the  Lesser 
Antilles ;  and  those  on  the  western  rim  of  the  Carib- 
bean Sea,  including  Cuba,  Jamaica,  and  Santo 
Domingo,  are  called  the  Greater  Antilles.  The 
Lesser  Antilles  stretch  away  eastward,   from  the 


POSITION  OF  JAMAICA.  343 

Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  meridian  of  Paria  in  South 
America,  say  sixteen  hundred  miles.  The  name 
Antilles  was  given  by  mistake  to  the  West  India 
Islands.  Before  the  discovery  of  America  by  Co- 
lumbus, a  tradition  existed,  that  lying  west  of  the 
Azores,  which  were  west  of  Africa,  there  lay  a  land 
called  Antillse,  whose  position  was  faintly  shown 
on  the  early  maps  of  the  cosmographers.  Nearly 
eight  months  after  Columbus  returned  to  Europe, 
it  was  held  that  the  islands  he  had  discovered  were 
the  fabled  Antilke,  and  Cuba  and  Hayti  were 
known  as  the  Antillse  before  a  single  link  of  the 
Caribbean  chain  had  been  discovered. 

In  the  Greater  Antilles  lies  Jamaica.  There  are 
in  the  Lesser  Antilles  thirteen  British  islands, 
scarcely  five  thousand  miles  in  area,  all  of  them  of 
much  less  than  the  area  of  Jamaica,  and  relatively 
of  far  less  importance.  And  so  I  am  sure  my  read- 
ers will  have  interest  in  my  facts  and  descriptions 
of  that  beautiful  island.  Those  facts  were  gathered 
from  personal  observation  in  a  three  years'  resi- 
dence in  the  island.  Jamaica  has  been  styled,  "The 
brightest  jewel  in  the  British  crown."  Its  peerless 
beauty  has  never  been  traced  by^  the  most  skilled 
painter.  No  statist  has  yet  computed  its  undevel- 
oped resources.  Its  geographical  position  and  its 
remarkable  history  have  been  the  theme  of  able 
writers.  But  there  is  a  still  more  potent  cause  for 
appreciating  this  singularly  beautiful  island.  It  is 
my  profound  conviction,  that  all  America,  includ- 
ing, also,  its  adjacent  islands,  should  properly  be- 
long to  the  United  States,  and  they  are  necessary 


344     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

to  her  fullest  and  destined  development';  and  for 
these  reasons  I  am  deeply  interested  in  all  that 
relates  to  the  West  Indies.  Four  hundred  and  six 
years  ago  Columbus  discovered  America.  Four 
hundred  and  three  years  ago  Columbus,  probably 
on  his  second  westward  voyage,  sailed  into  Saint 
Ann's  Bay,  on  the  north  side  of  the  island.  In  a 
part  of  Saint  Ann's  Bay  is  a  cove,  called  yet  "Chris- 
topher's Cove,"  where  he  anchored  his  ships  and 
wintered  and  where  he  lay  in  infirmity  and  suffer- 
ing and  mutiny,  the  gentle  natives  supplying  his 
wants. 

Jamaica  abounds  with  woods  and  streams,  and 
from  the  sea-line  to  the  loftiest  mountain  summits, 
eight  thousand  miles  above  the  sea-level,  the  sur- 
face is  clad  in  richest  livery  of  grass  and  flowers 
and  shrubs.  Its  vivid  green  and  gorgeous  flora 
gained  for  it  at  the  earliest  of  its  settlement  the 
name,  Xamaica — the  land  of  springs  and  verdure 
and  forests.  This  aboriginal  name,  Anglicized  to 
Jamaica,  it  has  ever  since  borne.  Discovered  by 
Spaniards,  it  became  a  Spanish  colony,  and  re- 
mained such  for  one  hundred  and  sixty-one  years. 
In  that  time  the  gentle  natives,  who  had  welcomed 
the  great  discoverer  and  had  ministered  to  his 
needs,  fell  victims  to  the  ruthless  rapacity  and  vio- 
lence of  their  conquerors.  Like  frostwork  in  the 
sun,  these  natives  melted  away  from  a  half  million 
to  one  hundred  thousand  or  less.  In  1655,  Oliver 
Cromwell,  then  Lord  High  Protector  of  England, 
sent  General  Venable  and  Admiral  Penn  to  the 
West  Indies,  ostensibly  to  make  reprisals  in  the 


HISTORY  OF  JAMAICA.  345 

Spanish  main  for  injuries  done  to  British  com- 
merce; but  really,  to  capture  and  subject  Santo 
Domingo,  and  all  this  without  a  formal  declaration 
of  war.  The  expedition  failed.  The  commanders 
disagreed.  It  is  alleged  that  one  or  both  of  them 
were  suspected  of  disloyalty  to  their  chief.  Feel- 
ing, perhaps,  that  they  should  not  return  without 
having  achieved  anything  to  add  to  their  luster, 
they  attacked  and  conquered  Jamaica,  and  planted 
upon  it  the  Cross  of  St.  George,  which  has  stamped 
an  immeasurable  impress  on  the  civilization  of  the 
world.  From  that  day  to  this,  for  two  hundred  and 
forty  years,  Jamaica  has  been  a  British  colony. 
For  two  hundred  and  ten  years  she  was  a  charter 
colony;  i.  e.,  a  self-governing  colony.  In  1865, 
during  a  momentary  panic  from  an  alleged  uprising 
of  the  Negroes,  she  surrendered  her  charter,  and 
requested  Great  Britain  to  make  her  a  crown  col- 
ony altogether,  without  self-governing  power,  hav- 
ing even  no  authority  to  elect  either  a  constable 
or  a  police  officer. 

Venable  and  Penn  were  cast  into  the  Tower  of 
London.  They  were  tried  by  court-martial  for 
their  treasonable  failure  to  do  something  more  sig- 
nal. Vexed  at  the  smallness  of  their  acquisition, 
Cromwell  offered  Jamaica  to  the  Colony  of  Massa- 
chusetts. This  historical  fact  is  not  in  the  books. 
It  is  not,  however,  any  the  less  true.  I  give  it  as 
authentic.  My  voucher  is  the  Rev.  Professor  E.  S. 
Starbuck,  of  Berea  College,  in  Kentucky,  formerly 
a  missionary  in  Jamaica  in  the  service  of  the  Ameri- 
can Missionary  Society.     He  claims  to  have  dis- 


346      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

covered  documentary  proof  in  Jamaica  of  the  truth 
of  the  statement.  Whatever  we  have  since  become 
as  an  expansive,  acquisitive  Nation,  adding  Flor- 
ida, Louisiana,  Texas,  California,  and  later  still 
the  icebergs  and  seals — aye,  and  the  gold-fields  of 
Alaska — we  were  then  but  callow  fledglings. 
Cromwell's  offer  was  declined.  Had  Massachusetts 
accepted  the  largess  of  Cromwell,  the  history  of 
England  and  of  the  United  States  might  have  been 
far  different  from  what  it  has  been. 

Jamaica  lies  centrally  in  the  Caribbean  Sea,  be- 
tween north  latitude  17  degrees  and  39  minutes,  and 
18  degrees  and  34  minutes.  It  is  one  hundred  and 
seventy-five  miles  long,  by  sixty-five  miles  wide. 
It  contains  six  thousand  four  hundred  square  miles, 
and  four  millions  and  eighty  thousand  square  acres. 
Ohio  is  six  times  as  large  as  Jamaica.  Jamaica  is 
more  than  half  as  large  as  Maryland,  three  times 
as  large  as  Delaware,  and  five  times  as  large  as 
Rhode  Island  in  area,  and  six  times  as  large  in 
population.  On  a  clear  day,  Cuba  can  be  seen 
from  the  mountains  of  Saint  Ann's,  directly  north 
of  Jamaica,  ninety  miles  distant,  and  Santo  Do- 
mingo about  as  far  east.  Jamaica  occupies  a  very 
central  position  geographically.  It  is  fourteen 
hundred  and  sixty  miles  south  from  New  York, 
and  five  hundred  miles  from  the  Isthmus  of  Darien. 
It  is  in  the  direct  line  between  England  and  Aus- 
tralia, and  directly  on  the  line  between  New  York 
and  Rio  Janeiro,  South  America.  Its  geographical 
position  and  commercial  importance  are  easily 
shown. 


OCEAN  AND  LAND  SURFACE.  347 

It  is  not  accidental  that  three-fourths  of  the 
world's  surface  is  water.  The  oceans  of  earth  are 
the  highways  of  commerce.  Intercourse  and  com- 
merce are  important  factors  in  the  civilization  and 
progress  of  the  world.  The  distribution  of  the 
oceans  is  peculiar.  There  is  less  land  in  the  West- 
ern than  in  the  Eastern  Hemisphere,  and  far  more 
north  of  the  equator  than  south  of  it.  The  land  is 
distributed  into  four  grand  divisions.  North  and 
South  America,  with  their  adjacent  islands,  make 
the  western  division,  or  hemisphere.  In  area,  this 
division  is  14,766,336  square  miles.  The  conti- 
nents of  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa,  with  their  sys- 
tems of  islands,  have  an  area  more  than  twice  as 
large  as  the  Western  Hemisphere,  or  32,500,000 
square  miles.  The  area  of  the  West  India  Islands 
is  one-sixteenth  that  of  the  Western  Hemisphere; 
i.  e.,  922,896  square  miles.  If  now  one  should  take 
two  maps  of  the  world,  say  Mercator's  projection 
in  duplicate  hemispheres,  and  lay  them  alongside 
each  other,  it  will  be  seen  that  North  America  lies 
between  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa  in  the  east,  and 
Asia  on  the  west,  with  broad  oceans  on  each  side 
of  her.  One  of  these  oceans  separating  them  is 
five  thousand  miles  wride,  and  the  other  three  thou- 
sand miles.  No  other  continent  in  the  world  is  so 
situated.  This  is  not  accidental.  Its  importance 
to  North  Asia  and  the  West  Indies  can  not  be  over- 
estimated. With  the  single  exception  of  Suez,  one 
hundred  miles  wide,  in  the  Eastern  Hemisphere, 
and  Darien  in  the  Western,  fifty  miles  wide,  God 
has  made  water  communication  around  the  world, 


348      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

on  its  most  populous  zone.  Commerce  has  com- 
pelled the  opening  of  the  Suez  Canal.  It  will  com- 
pel a  like  canal  in  the  Western  Hemisphere,  and 
then  the  waterway  of  commerce  and  travel  around 
the  world  on  its  most  populous  zone  will  be  com- 
plete; and,  by  the  way,  Jerusalem  will  be  on  that 
line.  There  is  now  a  railroad  from  Joppa  to  Jeru- 
salem, and  it  will  be  soon  extended  east  to  the 
Gulf  of  Persia. 

There  is  still  another  fact.  Jamaica  is  in  the 
midst  of  a  remarkable  sea,  directly  on  the  water- 
line  of  travel  and  commerce  around  the  world,  on 
the  zone  of  the  world's  greatest  populations,  and 
therefore  on  the  line  where  the  business  and  travel 
of  the  world  will  be  the  greatest,  and  it  also  lies 
right  on  the  line  of  the  north  and  south  commerce 
and  travel  of  the  world  between  New  York  and 
South  America.  In  the  earlier  times,  Washington 
and  others  of  the  fathers  of  the  United  States  held 
that  this  separation  of  our  country  from  all  other 
lands  was  a  Providential  fact,  insuring  us  from 
harmful  contact  with  all  other  nations,  so  indicat- 
ing segregation  and  isolation  from  all  other  nations 
as  the  wisest  policy.  But  steam  and  electricity  and 
commerce  have  forbidden  us  longer  to  indulge  in 
this  dream.  If  we  were  disposed  to  hide  within 
our  shell  and  avoid  contact  with  other  peoples, 
we  could  not  if  we  would,  and  we  should  not  if  we 
could.  Other  nations  would  not  let  us,  and  our 
aggressive  nature  and  the  demands  of  commerce 
and  travel  and  the  world's  progress  would  forbid. 
We  must  intermeddle  and  intermingle  with  all  other 


TWO   GREAT  MID-CONTINENT  SEAS.  349 

peoples,  or  fall  into  the  rear,  while  other  nations 
lead  the  van ;  or,  asserting  our  vim,  vigor,  and  vic- 
tory, we  must  lead  the  procession,  and  we  must 
have  virtue  enough  and  wisdom  enough  to  profit 
ourselves  and  the  race  by  this  intermeddling  and 
intermingling. 

There  are  two  most  remarkable  seas  in  the 
world,  twin  seas.  One  of  them  is  in  the  Eastern 
Hemisphere,  and  the  other  in  the  Western.  They 
are  both  so  nearly  alike  in  area  and  conditions 
and  relations,  as  to  seem  almost  like  twin  seas.  On 
the  shores  of  the  one  sea  the  cradle  of  science  was 
rocked.  On  the  shores  of  the  other,  the  mound- 
builders  and  the  Mexicans,  if  they  are  not  one  and 
the  same,  roamed  and  hunted  and  offered  their 
human  sacrifices.  On  the  waters  of  the  one,  Solo- 
mon's ships  carried  peacocks,  ivory  and  gold,  and 
myrrh  and  spices.  On  the  waters  of  the  other, 
the  mound-builders  propelled  their  bark  canoes. 
On  the  shores  of  the  one  sea  dwelt  Cadmus,  the 
father  of  letters,  and  Priam  and  Socrates  and  Sen- 
eca, kings  of  men.  The  shores  of  the  other  sea 
were  traversed  by  unknown  races.  One  of  these 
seas  divides  Europe  from  Africa.  The  other  di- 
vides North  and  South  America.  As  on  the  shores 
of  the  one  sea  the  cradle  of  the  infancy  of  science 
was  rocked,  so  on  the  shores  of  the  other  sea  shall 
the  highest,  grandest,  and  most  glorious  results 
of  science  and  morality  and  religion  be  reached  and 
illustrated. 

The  northern  boundary  of  the  great  western 
sea  are  the  Bahama  Islands  and  the  United  States. 


350     SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

The  southern  and  western  boundary  are  South  and 
Central  America.  The  Windward  West  India  Isl- 
ands, or  Lesser  Antilles,  like  a  setting  of  pearls, 
are  the  eastern  boundary.  The  western  sea  is  1,970 
miles  long  by  560  miles  wide.  These  seas  have 
practically  a  like  area.  The  Mediterranean  Sea 
has  an  area  of  1,000,000  square  miles.  The  Carib- 
bean has  an  area  of  1,100,000  square  miles.  In  the 
eastern  sea  there  are  sixty-four  islands,  large  and 
small,  some  of  them  of  great  historic  fame.  These 
islands  have  an  area  of  32,000  square  miles,  and  a 
population  of  4,000,000,  or  130  persons  to  the 
square  mile.  There  are  seventy-five  islands  in  the 
Caribbean  Sea,  with  an  area  of  86,000  square  miles, 
or  nearly  three  times  as  many  square  miles  as  in  its 
sister  sea,  and  a  population  of  four  million  persons, 
or  forty-five  to  the  square  mile. 

As  America  is  centrally  located  between  the 
other  continents,  so  is  Jamaica  to  the  other  islands 
in  the  Caribbean  Sea,  and  also  central  to  North 
and  South  America.  Jamaica  is  nearer  to  the  Isth- 
mus of  Darien  than  any  other  islands  in  the  Carib- 
bean, and  therefore  it  holds  the  key  position  of 
the  isthmus.  Hence  its  incomparable  commercial 
value.  When  commerce  and  travel  in  largely  in- 
creased ratio  shall  take  their  way  around  the  world, 
Jamaica  is  on  the  direct  line  of  that  movement. 
When  the  United  States  does  tenfold  its  present 
business  with  South  America,  Jamaica  will  be  its 
principal  stopping-place.  Populations  that  are 
touched  and  connected  by  rivers  and  seas  are  most 
important,  and  are  soonest  and  most  perfectly  civil- 


POPULATION  OF  JAMAICA.  35 1 

ized.  Secluded  peoples  come  on  very  gradually. 
The  East  Indies  are  more  important  than  Central 
Asia  or  Central  Africa.  Insular  countries,  for  the 
same  reason,  are  more  advanced  than  continental 
countries.  And  then,  moreover,  peoples  lying  in 
the  paths  of  the  world's  commerce  and  travel  ac- 
quire wealth  and  elegance  and  civilization.  All  this 
applies  to  Jamaica. 

By  the  census  of  1871,  the  population  of  Ja- 
maica is  506,154,  as  follows:  Whites,  13,100,  a  de- 
crease of  715  below  the  census  of  1861 ;  mulattoes, 
100,346,  an  increase  of  19,281  over  the  showing  of 
the  census  of  1861 ;  blacks,  372,707,  an  increase  of 
46,333  over  the  showing  of  the  census  of  1861. 
The  total  increase  of  population,  64,890,  an  in- 
crease for  the  decade  of  15  per  cent,  or  an  increase 
of  1^  per  cent  per  annum.  The  whites  decreased 
f  of  one  per  cent ;  the  colored  (or  mulatto)  people 
increased  2^  per  cent,  and  the  blacks  13  per  cent. 
By  the  census  of  1881,  the  whites  were  12,315,  a 
decrease  of  nearly  one  per  cent.  The  whole  popu- 
lation in  1 88 1  was  585,000,  an  increase  of  79,846, 
or  16  per  cent;  mulattoes,  128,468,  an  increase  of 
28  per  cent;  blacks,  444,217,  an  increase  of  13  per 
cent.  In  the  decade  ending  in  1881,  the  whites  had 
decreased  6  per  cent,  the  mulattoes  had  increased 
24  per  cent,  and  the  blacks  had  increased  13  per 
cent.  This  showing  proves  two  things:  1.  The 
healthfulness  of  Jamaica;  2.  The  greater  virility 
and  fruitfulness  of  the  mulattoes  over  the  blacks, 
and  also  the  greater  vigor  of  the  mulattoes  than 
of  the  blacks.     It  has  usually  been  thought  that 


352      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

the  mulattoes  were  more  sterile  and  the  blacks 
more  fruitful  than  the  mulattoes.  These  figures 
prove  the  contrary. 

Educationally,  the  people  of  Jamaica  display 
creditable  conditions.  All  the  primary  schools  are 
parochial  schools.  Each  religious  body  has  pa- 
rochial schools.  Forty  per  cent  of  the  population 
can  read  and  write,  and  are  attending  school.  Sev- 
enty-one thousand  are  able  to  read  and  write. 
Eighty-one  thousand  can  read.  Attending  school, 
forty-one  thousand.  In  all,  194,000,  or  one  in  three 
of  the  population  can  read  or  write,  or  both. 
There  are  four  hundred  and  forty  schools  under 
Government  inspection,  and  therefore  receiving 
money  from  the  Government.  The  Government 
pays  $78,000  per  year,  $2.36  for  each  scholar. 
There  are  two  hundred  endowed,  or  private, 
schools,  making  one  school  for  each  ninety-nine 
of  the  school  population.  Total  sum  annually  ex- 
pended for  education,  $200,000,  an  average  of  five 
dollars  for  each  enrolled  scholar,  and  $3.25  for  each 
one  of  the  school  population.  The  branches  taught 
are  primary.  In  studies  requiring  imitation  and 
memory,  the  blacks  excel  the  whites  and  mulattoes. 
In  all  others  the  blacks  are  little,  if  any,  behind 
them.  Many  of  the  blacks  and  mulattoes  are  thor- 
oughly educated.  Some  of  them  are  graduates  of 
Oxford,  Edinburgh,  and  Dublin.  Some  of  them, 
both  of  men  and  women,  are  of  commanding  pres- 
ence, graceful  in  form,  and  refined  in  manners. 
The  public  offices  are  effectively  filled  by  the  col- 
ored   and    black    people;    lawyers,    editors,    phy- 


MORALITY  IN  JAMAICA.  353 

sicians,  and  ministers.  Richard  Hill  (mulatto)  was 
an  accomplished  Belles  Lettres  scholar  and  natural- 
ist. Edward  Fraser,  a  Wesleyan  minister,  was  both 
learned  and  eloquent.  So  was  Samuel  Smyth, 
under  whose  ministry  I  sat  for  three  years. 

A  current  but  mistaken  idea  "held  by  foreigners 
visiting  Jamaica,"  is  that  the  Jamaicans  are  people 
of  lax  morals.  Persons  passing  through  the  island 
have  seen  only  the  coal-stokers  and  street  gamins, 
and  have  formed  their  conclusion  as  to  the  whole 
people  from  the  specimens  they  saw.  The  rural 
population  and  very  many  of  the  townspeople  own 
their  homesteads.  The  Churches  administer  rigid 
moral  discipline.  One-half  the  people  either  at- 
tend Church,  or  are  members  of  Churches.  There 
are  four  hundred  churches,  or  one  church  to  every 
three  hundred  and  forty  of  the  population.  In  the 
United  States  the  proportion  is  one  church  to  each 
five  thousand  of  the  population.  There  are  sev- 
enty-five thousand  Church  members,  or  one  to 
seven  of  the  population.  There  are  two  hundred 
thousand  Church  sittings,  and  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  regular  attendants  upon  Divine  wor- 
ship. Surely  these  facts  prove  that  the  Jamaicans 
are  neither  vicious  nor  degraded.  Eighty-eight 
thousand  of  the  people  are  married.  There  are 
six  thousand  widowers  and  seventeen  thousand 
widows.  One-fifth  of  the  whole  population  either 
are  married,  or  they  have  been  married,  and  are 
widowers  and  widows.  Two-fifths  of  the  whole 
population  are  born  in  wedlock.  Surely  such  a 
people  are  virtuous  and  happy. 
23 


354     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

Violent  crimes  are  unknown.  I  have  traveled 
by  night  and  by  day  all  over  the  island  with  my 
family,  without  the  slightest  fear  of  interruption. 
The  sugar  estates  have  to  send  messengers  on  foot 
ancl  alone  to  bring  money  from  the  banks  to  pay 
their  hands,  carrying  upon  their  persons  from 
$1,500  to  $3,000.  They  are  never  molested  or 
robbed.  One  instance  occurred  in  half  a  century 
where  a  messenger  with  money  was  robbed.  In 
1870  over  $500,000  were  deposited  in  savings 
banks.  When  it  is  remembered  that  labor  wages 
are  from  twenty-five  cents  to  thirty  cents  a  day, 
these  deposits  are  wonderful.  There  are  18,000 
Wesleyans,  90  churches,  20  parsonages,  and 
Church  property  valued  at  $500,000.  In  1871 
these  Wesleyans  raised  for  religious  uses  $50,000, 
an  average  of  three  dollars  per  year  per  member. 
Other  denominations  approximate  the  Wesleyans 
in  these  figures.  There  are  $2,500,000  in  the  sav- 
ings banks.  Only  two-thirds  of  the  island  are 
under  cultivation.  On  estates  where  sugar-cane 
has  been  grown  on  the  same  land  for  a  hundred 
years,  the  yield  is  still  undiminished. 

Kingston  has  a  population  of  forty  thousand. 
There  are  a  dozen  other  towns  with  populations 
varying  from  one  thousand  to  ten  thousand.  The 
products  of  Jamaica  are  sugar,  coffee,  pimento,  gin- 
ger, arrowroot,  sago,  indigo,  oranges,  limes,  shad- 
dock, grapes,  guava,  figs,  mangoes,  mangosteens, 
sour-sop,  cherry  moyer,  sweet-sop,  star-apples,  nut- 
megs,   mace,    cinnamon,    yams,    sweet    potatoes, 


PRODUCTS  OF  JAMAICA.  355 

achey,  honey,  cocoanuts,  bread-fruit,  senna,  pine- 
apples, bananas. 

The  woods  are,  logwood,  fustic,  ebony,  brazil- 
itis,  fiddlewood,  lignum-vitae,  sandalwood,  cedar, 
sanders-wood,  mahogany.  Mangoes  make  a  large 
part  of  the  food  of  the  islanders.  During  the 
mango  season,  the  consumption  of  flour  falls  off 
one-half.  Cinchona  and  tea  are  successfully  culti- 
vated.    Bananas  are  largely  exported. 

The  flora  of  Jamaica  is  gorgeous.  The  night- 
blooming  cereus  is  abundant.  The  Victoria  Regia 
is  one  of  the  largest  flowers  I  ever  saw.  The  leaves 
are  varnished  green,  on  stems  capable  of  support- 
ing a  man.  The  leaves  are  two  feet  by  five 
feet,  and  the  flower,  which  opens  only  in  the  night, 
has  a  disk  eighteen  inches  in  diameter,  of  wonder- 
fully brilliant  hues.  The  palm-tree  is  indigenous. 
There  are  ninety  species.  The  baobab,  or  silk 
cotton-tree,  deserves  special  mention.  It  grows 
immensely  large.  It  is  found  in  all  tropical  regions 
in  the  world.  Its  roots  and  branches  are  lateral  or 
horizontal.  A  baobab-tree,  near  Kingston,  casts 
a  shadow  at  noon  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in 
diameter.  It  has  singular  habits.  One-third  of  the 
tree  is  in  bloom,  one-third  in  fruit,  and  one-tfiird  in 
leaf  only.  The  Fiats  indicus,  wild  fig,  is  a  parasite, 
which  has  great  affinity  for  the  baobab.  It  fastens 
its  tendrils  at  the  ground  and  surrounds  the  trunk, 
winding  itself  in  close  coils  around  every  part  of 
the  tree,  until  the  tree  is  literally  choked  to  death; 
and  then,  as  the  lateral  limbs,  when  dead,  could 


356      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

not  bear  the  suspended  horizontal  coils  of  the  fig, 
unless  supported,  the  fig  drops  lines  to  the  ground 
from  the  limbs,  which  take  root  and  support  the 
overloaded  limbs;  and  when  the  tree,  which  fur- 
nished a  scaffolding  for  the  wild  fig,  is  dead,  the 
parasite  is  supported  by  a  hundred  additional 
trunks,  and  the  wild  fig  becomes  the  banyan-tree 
of  the  Indies.  The  cedar-tree  of  Jamaica,  unlike 
its  kindred  tree  of  the  north,  has  open,  spreading 
branches  and  large  leaves  like  those  of  the  lime, 
and  yet  the  three  varieties  of  tropical  cedar,  the  red, 
white,  and  yellow,  have  the  perfume  and  colors  of 
the  cedars  of  the  north. 

The  climate  of  Jamaica  is  delightful.  It  is  not 
so  hot  at  any  time  as  the  summer  climate  of  Maine 
or  of  Oregon.  The  trade-winds  reduce  the  heat  to 
a  comfortable  degree.  Its  insular  condition  pre- 
vents the  heat  from  becoming  insufferable.  In 
May  and  October,  the  rainy  season,  the  trade-winds 
cease,  and  then  the  temperature  becomes  extreme 
and  unpleasant;  but  by  ascending  the  mountains 
the  heat  can  be  graduated  to  the  climate  of  the 
temperate  zone,  at  the  pleasure  of  the  person. 

Hurricanes  are  of  rare  occurrence.  Every 
twenty  or  thirty  years  furnishes  an  occasional  wind 
storm,  which  sweeps  with  great  fierceness  and  de- 
structiveness.  The  tropical  rains  are  most  abun- 
dant. I  went  once  from  my  office  to  my  hotel  in 
a  rain.  The  streets  in  five  minutes  were  deluged, 
requiring  me  to  wade  in  several  inches  depth  of 
water,  and  an  umbrella  was  of  little  more  protection 
than  an  old-fashioned  sieve.    I  have  known  the  best 


CLIMATE   OF  JAMAICA,  357 

climates  of  the  different  parts  of  North  America. 
I  have  breathed  the  dry  air  of  Mexico  and  of  Lower 
California;    I    have    scaled    the    Sierras    and    the 
Rockies;  I  have  traversed  the  deserts  of  our  in- 
terior; I  have  felt  the  bracing  air  of  British  Co- 
lumbia and  of  Alaska ;  but  I  have  never,  anywhere, 
found  a  climate  so  delicious  and  agreeable  as  that 
of  Jamaica.     The  climate  of  Cuba  and  Santo  Do- 
mingo  is  almost   precisely   like  that   of  Jamaica. 
Earthquakes  are  common.     Some  of  them  are  very 
destructive.    Mountains  have  been  riven  from  sum- 
mit to  base.     Enormous  fissures  have  been  made 
by  them.      Mount   Sinai,   a  few   miles   east   from 
Kingston,  was  riven,  and  a  slice  of  the  mountain 
was  cut  down  for  two  thousand  feet  as  smooth  as 
a  knife  could  cut  through  cheese,  and  thrown  off, 
covering  a  large  penn,*  and  burying  houses,  men, 
and  animals.     The  mountains  of  St.  Thomas  in 
the  vale  were  severed  to  the  base,  and  a  river  winds 
its  way  through  the  cleft  made  by  the  earthquake. 
In  1692  the  great  earthquake  buried  the  larger  part 
of  Port  Royal  in  the  sea,  with  the  dwellings  and 
the    thousands    of    people.      In    places    the    earth 
opened,  and  then  closed  again.     I  read  of  Robert 
Goldy,  on  his  tombstone,  that  he  fell  into  a  crevasse, 
and  then  was  thrown  out  of  that  into  the  bay,  and 
escaped  by  swimming  and  survived  the  accident 
many  years.     The  bodies  of  the  dead  filled  the  air 
with  the  noisome  pestilence.    Jamaica  has  no  dan- 
gerous beasts  of  prey.    There  are  no  venomous  ser- 


*  Penn  is  the  word  for  a  ranch  or  an  estate. 


358      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

pents.  But  there  are  lizards  in  plenty.  Centipedes, 
scorpions,  and  tarantulas  abound ;  but  these  are  not 
fatal  in  their  sting.  Chigres,  or  a  species  of  ver- 
min, will  pierce  the  skin,  and  deposit  their  eggs 
under  it,  which  must  be  extracted,  or  serious  injury 
will  follow. 

Jamaica  has  a  fine  system  of  roads,  well  graded 
and  ballasted,  across  the  mountains  and  around  the 
shores.  The  health  of  the  island  is  widely  cele- 
brated. The  yellow  fever  sometimes  visits  the 
cities  and  becomes  epidemic;  but  this  results  from 
the  filth  of  the  larger  cities.  The  island  is  beau- 
tiful beyond  description.  Approached  from  the 
north  side,  the  land  swells  from  the  sea  in  grace- 
fully-rounded hills,  between  which  streams  and 
waterfalls  are  born.  On  the  south  side  the  sur- 
face is  more  irregular  and  craggy.  The  irregular- 
ities of  surface,  and  the  serrated,  comb-like  appear- 
ance of  the  mountain  profile  cut  against  the  blue 
sky,  are  of  thrilling  majesty  and  power.  Here  a 
chasm,  there  a  bold  outline;  here  the  gentle  slope, 
there  the  sharp  acclivity;  forest,  and  field,  and  tilth, 
and  meadow, — make  up  a  perspective  never  sur- 
passed, and,  once  witnessed,  never  forgotten.  Mr. 
Trollope,  quoting  Christopher  Columbus's  de- 
scription of  Jamaica,  describes  it,  as  seen  from  the 
southern  approach,  as  resembling  a  sheet  of  writ- 
ing paper  crumpled  and  compressed,  and  then  left 
with  all  its  creases  and  folds  upon  it. 

The  nearer  view  is  none  the  less  enchanting. 
Take  a  buggy-ride  through  the  famous  Bog  Walk, 
rived  by  the  earthquake  from  mountain  summit 


LANDSCAPES  IN  JAMAICA.  359 

to  base,  through  which  meanders  the  Rio  Cobra; 
cross  Mount  Diabolo,  three  thousand  feet  high,  on 
a  grade  so  easy  that  your  horses  can  trot  up  the 
whole  ascent;  through  the  parish  of  Saint  Ann's, 
and  see  the  well-inclosed  meadows  waving  with 
luxuriant  guinea  grass,  and  coffee-walks  and  orange 
and  pimento  groves,  redolent  of  the  most  exquisite 
perfume,  or  gold  and  purple  with  their  ample  fruit- 
age and  foliage,  and  see  the  flocks  and  herds, — and 
you  have  such  a  vision  of  beauty  you  are  ready 
to  say  with  the  delighted  Queen  of  Sheba,  "The 
half  has  never  yet  been  told." 


Fifth:  VttbcaL 

Work  in  Ohio. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

RETURNING  to  the  United  States  from  con- 
sular service  in  October,  1873,  from  which  I 
had  long  before  resigned,  I  accepted  the  position 
of  corresponding  secretary  of  the  American  Colo- 
nization Society,  with  headquarters  at  Cincinnati, 
Ohio.  I  was  elected  to  this  position  by  the  man- 
agers of  that  Society,  upon  the  recommendation  of 
Bishop  Simpson.  I  removed  to  Cincinnati  with 
my  family  late  in  October  of  1873.  I  attended  the 
annual  meeting  of  the  managers  and  members  of 
the  Colonization  Society,  the  same  fall,  in  Wash- 
ington, D.  C.  I  preached  on  the  colonization  of 
Africa  from  the  colored  freedmen  of  the  South,  in 
Foundry  Church,  on  the  Sunday  of  my  stay  in 
Washington.  Soon  after,  I  made  a  trip  to  Savan- 
nah, Georgia,  from  which  place  I  shipped  some 
thirty  or  forty  freedmen  and  freedwomen  from 
Hawkinsville,  Georgia.  All  went  off  in  high  spir- 
its, except  one,  who  was  told  by  some  meddlesome 
person,  that  they  would  be  taken  away  from  New 
York,  and  then,  when  out  at  sea,  they  would  be 
sent  as  slaves  to  some  slaveholding  country,  prob- 
ably Cuba.  His  suspicions  got  the  better  of  his 
wishes,  and  he  declined  to  go. 

Reaching  home,  I  found  my  wife's  health  so 
much  worse  that  I  resigned  my  secretaryship,  to 
spend  all  my  time  in  caring  for  her.  Her  disease 
was  Angina  pectoris,  disease  of  the  heart.     In  May, 

363 


364      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

1874,  after  six  months  of  distressing  illness,  her 
gentle  spirit  passed  away  from  earth  to  be  with 
God.  Her  disease  caused  her  intense  suffering,  and 
it  superinduced  dropsy.  For  nearly  six  months 
she  was  unable  to  lie  down.  She  described  the 
pain  in  her  heart  to  be  as  torturing  as  though  a 
thousand  needles  were  piercing  it.  When  the 
council  of  doctors  pronounced  her  case  hopeless, 
in  answer  to  her  inquiries,  she  said  to  them :  "It  is 
well.  I  am  not  surprised.  I  am  ready."  When 
they  had  retired,  she  sang  two  verses — the  first  and 
the  last — of  the  hymn  : 

"When  I  can  read  my  title  clear 
To  mansions  in  the  skies, 
I  '11  bid  farewell  to  every  fear, 
And  wipe  my  weeping  eyes. 

Then  I  shall  bathe  my  weary  soul 

In  seas  of  heavenly  rest, 
And  not  a  wave  of  trouble  roll 

Across  my  peaceful  breast." 

When  the  end  came,  and  for  which  she  had 
prearranged,  it  was  morning.  She  said,  "I  think 
the  time  has  come  for  our  responsive  reading  of 
the  twenty-third  Psalm."  She  sat  propped  up  in 
bed,  and  she  was  leaning  against  me,  every  now 
and  then  pressing  against  me,  as  if  to  escape  the 
torturing  pain  of  her  heart.  I  began,  "The  Lord 
is  my  shepherd."  She  responded,  "I  shall  not 
want."  I  continued  repeating,  pausing  at  each 
comma  for  her  voice.  When  I  read,  "Yea,  though 
1  walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death," 
she  once  more  and  feebly  added,  "I  will  fear  no 


DEATH  OF  MRS.    PEARNE.  365 

evil."  A  moment  after  she  peacefully  expired.  As 
the  last  breath  ceased,  her  face,  which  had  been 
drawn  in  lines  of  agony,  relaxed,  and  a  smile  over- 
spread her  features.  Her  eyes  were  upturned,  and 
a  look  of  surprise  and  delight  illuminated  her  coun- 
tenance. It  seemed  as  though  the  new  scenes  un- 
folding to  her  were  enrapturing. 

For  more  than  thirty-three  years  she  had  been 
a  faithful,  loving  wife.  Our  hearts  were  wonder- 
fully knit  together  in  love.  The  honeymoon  had 
never  gone  down.  For  ten  years  she  had  shared, 
unmurmuringly,  the  trials  and  crosses  incident  to 
the  itinerancy  in  New  York  and  Pennsylvania. 
For  another  fourteen  years  she  had  cheerfully  ac- 
cepted the  rigors  and  privations  of  frontier  life  in 
Oregon.  Five  years,  without  a  complaint,  she  was 
under  the  heavy  strain  of  the  reconstruction  work 
in  Tennessee.  Part  of  the  time  in  Oregon  I  was 
able  to  spend,  each  quarter,  only  one  week  in  thir- 
teen at  our  home,  and  she  had  remained  almost 
alone  the  other  twelve  weeks.  She  said  to  me,  after 
we  had  gone  from  Tennessee,  that  I  had  never  left 
her  to  go  on  my  district  there,  that  she  did  not 
have  a  shuddering  fear  that  I  would  be  assassinated 
and  brought  home  dead.  Three  years  we  had  lived 
together  in  Jamaica,  and  nearly  all  the  last  year 
of  her  life  she  was  an  invalid.  In  her  last  illness 
she  advised  me  to  re-enter  the  active  work  of  the 
itinerancy,  saying  she  believed  I  would  be  more 
useful  and  happy  in  that  service  than  in  any  other. 
Noble  woman !  Heroic  and  brave !  For  all  the 
years  of  our  union  my  home  was  the  dearest  and 


366      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

brightest  spot  on  earth.  We  bore  her  remains  to 
Cortland,  N.  Y.  In  the  beautiful  cemetery  of  that 
lovely  village  sleep  the  ashes  of  my  mother  and 
father  and  of  my  child.  There  her  dust  will  slum- 
ber until  the  trumpet  of  the  archangel  and  the 
voice  of  the  Son  of  God  shall  break  the  long  silence. 
The  Methodist  Preachers'  Meeting  of  Cincin- 
nati had  been  very  kind  to  me  during  the  year  of 
my  residence  in  that  city.  They  unanimously  in- 
vited me  to  become  a  member  of  the  Cincinnati 
Conference,  which  I  did,  by  transfer,  in  September, 
1874.  The  session  that  year  was  held  in  Wilming- 
ton, Clinton  County.  Bishop  R.  S.  Foster  pre- 
sided. Bishop  Ames  was  present  most  of  the  ses- 
sion. He  strongly  urged  me  to  go  with  him  to 
Minnesota,  and  take  work  in  a  leading  Church  in 
Minneapolis.  I  should  probably  have  done  so,  but 
for  the  invitation  of  the  Cincinnati  Preachers' 
Meeting.  Then,  moreover,  I  had  for  ten  years 
been  intimately  associated  in  Oregon  with  Rev. 
Francis  S.  Hoyt,  D.  D.,  who,  in  that  new  country, 
had  been  the  efficient  president  of  the  Willamette 
University,  and  who  was  at  this  time  living  in  Cin- 
cinnati, and  editing  most  effectively  the  Western 
Christian  Advocate.  Then,  also,  I  had  become 
pleasantly  acquainted  with  the  brave  old  hero,  Rev. 
R.  S.  Rust,  in  the  years  of  reconstruction.  For 
ten  years  our  fellowship  had  been  edifying  and 
delightful.  It  is  not  strange,  then,  that  under  these 
conditions  I  should  prefer  remaining  in  the  Cin- 
cinnati Conference,  to  adventuring  again  in  the 
new  Northwest.     I  was  stationed  in  Grace  Church, 


AT  GRACE   CHURCH y   DAYTON.  367 

Dayton.  I  went  there  without  seeking  the  ap- 
pointment. Indeed,  I  did  not  personally  know  a 
single  member  there,  nor  had  I  ever  preached  in 
that  church,  nor  seen  it.  to  know  it. 

When  I  went  up  on  Saturday  to  enter  upon  my 
charge  I  went  to  the  hotel,  the  Beckel  House. 
After  supper  I  walked  out,  and,  drawn  by  the  lights 
and  the  music,  I  went  into  the  Public  Square, 
where  the  Woman's  Christian  Association  were 
giving  a  social  entertainment.  Here  I  met  Rev. 
W.  A.  Robinson,  stationed  that  year  in  Raper, 
Dayton,  with  whom  I  had  had  a  Conference  room 
acquaintance,  and  he  introduced  me  to  several  of 
my  members.  Thus  began  my  itinerant  ministry 
in  Ohio.  Grace  Church  had  a  lovely  and  elegant 
church  edifice,  which  cost  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars,  and  a  membership  of  six  or  seven  hundred. 
Here  were  spent  three  happy,  prosperous,  and,  I 
trust,  useful  years.  Some  of  the  friendships  formed 
in  this  charge  were  among  the  most  delightful  I 
have  ever  known.  Two  changes  were  effected  dur- 
ing this  pastorate,  which,  I  have  no  doubt,  were 
conducive  to  the  welfare  and  usefulness  of  the 
Church.  The  first  was  to  change  the  Sunday- 
school  hour  from  afternoon  to  morning.  It  had 
been  an  afternoon  school  for  many  years,  perhaps 
nearly  fifty,  and  it  was  not  a  very  easy  thing  to 
change  it;  but  I  assured  the  brethren  that  if  they 
would  keep  the  morning  hour  for  a  year  in  their 
Sunday-school  the  change  would  vindicate  its  wis- 
dom, and  it  would  remain  permanently  the  chosen 
hour.     And  so  it  has  done.     The  other  innovation 


368     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERA  XT   WORK'. 

was  even  greater,  and  more  difficult  to  effect ;  but  it 
'succeeded.  That  was  for  the  Church  to  bear  the 
expense  of  the  Sunday-school,  and  train  the  schol- 
ars in  Christian  giving.  I  argued  that  to  induce 
the  children  to  bring  their  offerings  simply  to  pay 
their  expenses,  the  training  would  inculcate  only 
business  justice  and  self-dependence;  but  it  would 
not  cultivate  the  grace  of  giving;  and  then,  more- 
over, I  urged  upon  the  Official  Board  that  the  Sun- 
day-school was  an  arm  of  the  Church's  working, 
and  its  expense  should  be  borne  by  the  Church  as 
really  as  the  salary  of  the  janitor,  the  organist,  or 
the  choir.  This  change,  too,  has  vindicated  its 
wisdom  by  the  experience  of  many  years.  The 
missionary  collections  in  this  Church  the  year  be- 
fore I  was  pastor  were:  From  the  Church,  $131.88; 
from  the  Sunday-school,  $486.68.  The  last  year  of 
my  pastorate  missionary  collections  were :  From 
the  Church,  $298.68,  an  advance  of  9J  per  cent ; 
from  the  Sunday-school,  $546,  an  increase  of  12 \ 
per  cent;  whole  amount,  $844,  an  increase  of  30 
per  cent. 

The  first  year  of  my  pastorate  in  Grace  Church 
Bishop  Foster  spent  a  Sabbath  with  me,  preaching 
morning  and  evening.  His  preaching  produced 
a  profound  impression.  He  found  that,  wherever 
he  and  I  went  on  the  streets,  all  the  children 
greeted  me  personally.  He  said  it  was  a  beautiful 
sight  to  see  this  respect  and  love  for  a  pastor 
among  the  children.  During  my  second  year 
Bishop  Andrews   spent  a   Sunday  in   my   charge. 


REV.    DAVID   RUTLEDGE'S  ADVICE.  369 

In  our  boyhood  he  and  I  were  Sunday-school 
mates,  and  we  grew  up  together  in  the  same  vil- 
lage, New  York  Mills,  Oneida  County.  His 
preaching  was  very  edifying  and  helpful  to  the 
Church.  He  lias  proved  a  wise  and  faithful  bishop. 
I  was  in  the  habit  of  preaching  five-minute  ser- 
mons to  the  children  of  my  charge,  before  preach- 
ing the  sermon  to  adults.  The  children  quite 
generally  attended  the  preaching  service  in  the 
forenoon.  The  short  children's  sermons  proved  a 
genuine  attraction  and  blessing  to  the  children. 

During  my  second  year's  pastorate  I  had  a  visit 
of  nearly  a  week  from  a  former  Oregon  associate, 
Rev.  David  Rutledge,  who  was  ten  years  in  Ore- 
gon, filling  some  of  the  best  appointments  we  had. 
He  was  a  very  popular  and  useful  pastor.  I  esteem 
him  as  a  very  faithful  friend.  He  advised  me  that 
I  could  be  much  more  useful,  and  really  more  safe 
in  my  reputation,  and  he  believed  more  happy,  if  I 
were  to  re-marry.  I  had  not  then  given  the  sub- 
ject a  serious  thought,  and  I  so  informed  him.  I 
did  not  know  of  a  person  towards  whom  I  had  felt 
drawn  as  a  suitable  person  for  a  wife  for  me.  He 
advised  me  to  visit  Bishop  Janes,  and  consult  with 
him  on  the  subject.  I  took  his  advice.  The  bishop 
recommended  me  to  visit  Miss  Caroline  McDonald, 
a  lady  whom  he  had  known  from  her  birth.  She 
was  a  maiden  lady  of  some  thirty-five  years,  of  good 
mind  and  manners,  and  of  high  Christian  character, 
who  was  an  efficient  Church  worker,  a  lady  of  ex- 
cellent judgment,  and  at  the  same  time  of  such 
24 


370     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

domestic  qualities,  that  he  judged  I  could  not  fail 
to  appreciate  and  love  her.  He  said  she  was  in  the 
city,  he  thought,  and  that  if  I  saw  her  and  wished 
a  correspondence,  I  might  refer  her  to  him  as  to 
my  character  and  standing  in  the  Conferences.  I 
learned  that  Miss  McDonald  was  in  Baltimore  visit- 
ing a  friend.  I  procured  the  address,  and  went  to 
Baltimore.  I  saw  her  for  an  hour  or  two,  and  pro- 
posed a  correspondence.  In  July  following,  I  at- 
tended Round  Lake  Camp-meeting  in  New  York, 
and  preached.  Here,  again,  I  met  Miss  McDonald. 
We  entered  into  a  marriage  engagement.  October 
12,  1875,  we  were  married  by  Bishop  Janes,  in 
Sand  Street  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  Brook- 
lyn. Our  marriage  has  been  a  happy  one.  God's 
blessing  has  been  upon  it.  I  have  no  doubt  my 
ministry  has  been  very  largely  more  successful  be- 
cause of  this  union  than  it  would  otherwise  have 
been.  She  has  been  a  faithful  and  earnest  helper 
in  all  Church  work.  Her  exercises  have  been 
helpful  to  very  many  persons,  young  and  old.  The 
marriage  has  doubtless  added  years  of  useful  labor 
to  my  life,  and  gladdened  my  path  by  its  fellowship 
and  by  the  children  she  has  borne  me.  A  son  died 
in  infancy.  My  daughter  still  survives,  and  gives 
promise  of  being  a  useful  woman  if  her  life  shall 
be  prolonged. 

The  great  iron  wheel  of  the  itinerancy  rolled 
me  into  Hillsboro,  Ohio.  The  first  Sabbath  of  my 
pastorate  here  I  raised  a  collection  of  $1,500,  to 
assist  in  repairing  and  furnishing  the  Hillsboro  Fe- 


AT  HILLSBORO   STATION.  37 1 

male  College,  which  for  many  years  had  been  doing- 
most  efficient  service  in  educating  young  women  in 
classical  and  literary  lines.  Hillsboro  Charge  was 
an  old  and  large  station,  one  of  the  oldest  in  the 
Conference.  In  1840,  Rev.  Randolph  S.  Foster 
was  upon  the  Hillsboro  Circuit,  before  the  station 
was  organized  as  a  separate  appointment.  In  1841 
he  was  the  first  stationed  Methodist  minister  in 
Hillsboro,  bringing  to  the  charge  his  young  bride. 
The  small  hired  house  in  which  he  lived  while  here 
is  still  shown.  His  subsequent  illustrious  course, 
as  a  popular  city  preacher  in  New  York,  and  later 
as  president  of  the  Northwestern  University  in  Chi- 
cago, and  afterwards  a  most  efficient  professor  in 
Drew  Theological  Seminary,  from  which,  in  1872, 
he  was  elected  a  bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  is  too  well  known  to  need  more  than  a 
mere  mention.  I  learned  some  interesting  personal 
incidents  in  his  pastorate  in  Wesley  Chapel  in  Cin- 
cinnati, which  have  probably  never  been  published 
until  I  published  them,  and  which  will  be  found  in 
another  part  of  this  book  in  the  Centennial  Sermon 
I  preached  in  1888.  Hillsboro  Station  has  had 
some  of  the  strong  men  of  Western  Methodism  as 
pastors.  The  charge  has  always  ranked  as  a  large 
and  strong  society. 

T  was  removed  at  the  end  of  the  first  quarter 
of  my  second  year's  work  in  Hillsboro,  and  placed 
upon  the  Dayton  District,  to  fill  a  vacancy  that 
had  occurred  there,  and  James  Kendall,  an  elo- 
quent and  able  minister,  was  my  successor.    I  shall 


372     SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

always  hold  delightful  memories  of  this  charge.  I 
was  removed  in  the  midst  of  the  year  by  Bishop 
Wiley,  and  appointed  to  Dayton  District,  January, 
1879.  The  district  contained  twenty-six  appoint- 
ments: Dayton,  with  three  charges,  Grace,  Raper, 
and  West  Dayton ;  Piqua,  with  two  charges ;  Troy, 
Tippecanoe,  Middletown,  Miamisburg,  and  Frank- 
lin, were  considerable  villages  or  cities.  The  other 
charges  were,  Addison,  North  Hampton,  Concord, 
Lewisburg,  Gordon,  West  Elkton,  Lockington, 
Casstown,  St.  Paris  and  Lena,  Brandt,  Red  Lion, 
Fairfield,  New  Carlisle,  and  Monroe.  William 
Herr  was  secretary  of  the  Preachers'  Relief  Society. 
The  preachers  on  the  district  wrought  in  precious 
unity  and  fellowship  with  one  another  and  with  the 
presiding  elder.  I  was  reappointed  to  the  district 
by  Bishop  Simpson,  in  September,  1879;  by  Bishop 
Peck,  in  1880;  by  Bishop  Wiley,  in  1881.  They 
were  years  of  hard  but  happy  toil.  The  record 
made  has  gone  up  on  high,  and  it  rests  with  God. 
Of  those  who  were  effective  ministers  when  I  took 
the  district,  as  well  as  I  can  ascertain  three  have 
died,  two  have  located,  thirteen  have  superannu- 
ated, eight  have  remained  in  the  effective  ranks. 
Of  the  twenty-six  who  were  effective  when  I  left 
the  district,  two  have  died,  fourteen  are  effective, 
two  have  located,  and  eight  have  superannuated. 
So  the  laborers  come  and  go. 

My  residence  during  the  term  of  the  Dayton 
District  was  in  Dayton.  I  was  called  on  to  make 
an  address  on  occasion  of  unveiling  a  portrait  of 
Daniel  J.  Rouzer,  who  was  the  president  of  the 


COMMEMORATIVE  ADDRESS.  373 

Good  Samaritan  Society,  and  a  very  benevolent, 
humane  man.  The  following  is  the  address  de- 
livered on  that  occasion : 

ADDRESS. 

We  are  met  to  unveil  a  portrait.  Something  which 
has  been  obscured  is  to  be  disclosed.  The  obscurity 
will  soon  be  removed.  Death  has  veiled  from  human 
sight  the  loved  form  of  our  friend,  Daniel  J.  Rouzer. 
The  sun  had  painted  him  while  he  was  yet  among  us. 
The  artist  has  reproduced,  on  canvas,  his  visible  form 
and  features.  You  will  soon  look  upon  them.  You 
will  judge  for  yourselves  how  correctly  the  original 
has  been  reproduced.  While  your  eyes  behold  the 
lines  and  lights  and  shadows  that  make  up  this  beau- 
tiful portrait,  another  unveiling  of  him  will  take  place 
in  your  minds.  Memory  will  recall  those  acts  of  his 
life,  and  those  traits  of  his  character,  which  made  him 
loved  and  lovable.  This  is  being  done  by  those  whose 
acquaintance  with  him  was  comparatively  slight,  but 
who  saw  in  the  glance  of  his  eye,  who  felt  in  the 
pressure  of  his  hand,  who  beheld  in  the  out-acted 
kindness  of  his  inner  heart,  something  which  they 
admired.  Those  who  held  near  relation  to  him  are 
recalling  his  generous,  unselfish  kindness,  manifested 
so  variously  and  so  often,  and  also  his  manliness  of 
nature.  His  fellow-compositors  are  recalling  his  kind- 
ness and  trueness  in  the  intimacy  of  daily  office  life. 
One  who  was  connected  with  him  in  business  re- 
lations, says  of  him : 

In  the  death  of  Brother  Rouzer  the  temperance  people 
of  this  section  have  lost  one  whose  place  can  not  soon  be 
filled,  if  ever,  and  the  cause  at  large  an  earnest  and  zealous 
worker.  A  reformed  man  himself,  he  could  feel  and  appre- 
ciate the  difficulties  under  which  men  labored  in  trying  to 
redeem  their  fallen  manhood,  and  his  eloquent  and  burning 


374      SIXTV-OXE    YEARS   OF  ITIXERAXT    WORK. 

words  for  God  and  temperance  will  long  be  remembered  by 
the  thousands  who  heard  him,  and  hundreds  who,  by  his  ex- 
ertions, were  led  into  the  right  way  will  ever  cherish  his 
memory. 

From  long  and  intimate  intercourse  with  Brother  Rouzer, 
as  partner  and  friend,  we  learned  to  love  him,  and  knew  more 
of  his  inner  nature,  and  his  terrible  struggle  against  appe- 
tite, than  any  others  outside  of  his  family.  While  battling 
against  himself,  he  was  ever  ready  to  help  others;  his  hand 
was  ever  open  to  assist  the  needy,  and  his  heart  ever  beat  in 
sympathy  for  the  fallen. 

Farewell,  brother,  partner,  friend!  Your  memory  will 
ever  be  green  in  the  heart  of  him  who  has  stood  by  your  side 
in  the  great  battle  of  right  against  wrong,  and  who  will  still 
continue  to  fight  on  until  victory  crowns  our  banners,  or 
he  is  called  hence  by  the  Master. 

This  is  not  the  time  nor  the  place  for  a  eulogy. 
Many  good  things  can  be  said  of  our  friend.  Of  his 
faults — and  who  has  none? — it  is  not  my  duty  nor 
my  pleasure  to  speak.  Nothing  so  sanctifies  a  name 
as  to  write  one  dead.  The  society  of  Good  Samaritans, 
of  which  the  departed  was  a  member,  a  founder,  and 
its  president,  the  National  Christian  Temperance 
Union,  to  which  he  belonged,  and  also  those  who  bore 
a  still  nearer  relation,  are  unveiling  the  man  as  he 
was,  to  their  conception.  They  are  re-looking  on 
what  has  passed  from  human  sight,  but  on  what  still 
lives  in  human  memory,  in  loving  hearts — an  unselfish, 
earnest  life ;  a  life  full  of  struggles  and  conflicts — 
sometimes  winning,  sometimes  losing,  but  always 
honest,  always  genuine.  They  are  recalling  what  we 
admired  while  he  lived,  and  what  is  remembered,  with 
loving  reverence,  now  that  he  has  gone  away. 

Men  are  measured  and  estimated  for  what  they 
are,  and  not  for  what  they  seem ;  for  what  they  do, 
and  not  for  what  they  profess.  Men  rise  or  fall  in 
the  estimation  of  others,  not  as  they  are  brilliant  and 
talented,  or  rich,  or  mighty,  or  exalted  in  station,  or 


COMMEMORATIVE  ADDRESS.  375 

learned,  but  as  they  are  good  and  unselfish.  This 
position  has  the  suffrage  of  the  representative  men 
of  all  classes  and  of  all  times  and  countries.  George 
Herbert  says,  "A  handful  of  good  life  is  better  than 
a  bushel  of  learning."  Walter  Scott  says,  "It  is  not 
great  learning  which  awakens  men's  respect,  but  the 
nobler,  truer  qualities  of  goodness  and  truth."  Shakes- 
peare says: 

"How  far  that  little  candle  throws  its  beams! 
So  shines  a  good  deed  in  a  naughty  world." 

And  so,  also,  shines  the  faithful,  earnest  doer  of  the 
good  deeds.  The  largest  funeral  I  ever  saw,  of  a 
private  individual,  was  that  of  Mr.  Marshall,  in  this 
city,  some  two  or  three  years  ago.  You  remember 
the  'crowds  that  gathered  in  all  the  streets,  and  that 
followed  in  long,  sad  procession  to  your  beautiful 
Woodland  Cemetery.  It  was  the  spontaneous  tribute 
of  a  whole  people  to  unostentatious,  genuine  good- 
ness__goodness  in  the  common  walks  of  life. 

These  elements  of  truth  and  honor  and  nobility 
may  exist  and  shine  in  those  of  lowly  lot,  as  well 
as  in  those  of  higher  station.  Pope  has  very  well 
said, — 

"Honor  and  shame  from  no  condition  rise; 

Act  well  your  part,  there  all  the  honor  lies. 

Worth  makes  the  man,  and  want  of  it  the  fellow; 

The  rest  is  all  but  leather  or  prunello." 

This  was  the  thought  of  Burns,  in  the  well-known 

lines — 

"The  rank  is  but  the  guinea's  stamp, 
The  man  's  the  goud  for  a'  that." 

The   Scotch   bard   came   honestly  by  this   truth,   for 
his  father  had   inculcated  the   same   in  the  forming 


376      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

period  of  Robert's  life.  Burns  thus  speaks  of  the  les- 
sons taught  by  his  honored  parent : 

"He  bade  me  act  a  manly  part, 

Though  I  had  ne'er  a  farthing; 
For  without  an  honest,  manly  heart, 
No  man  was  worth  regarding." 

The  merit  is  not  in  place  nor  surroundings,  but  in 
the  man  himself.  The  elegance  and  beauty  of  a  circle 
lies  not  so  much  in  its  size  as  in  its  perfect  round- 
ness. At  the  summit  of  their  influence  in  their  re- 
spective lines,  Luther  and  Knox  and  Wesley  and 
Cowper  and  Burns  were  comparatively  poor.  They 
owed  nothing  of  their  greatness  to  the  distinctions 
of  wealth  and  place.  It  is  not  the  clothes  men  wear, 
nor  the  stations  they  fill,  which  give  human  immor- 
tality. 

When  a  man  does  some  act  with  which  humanity 
is,  for  the  time,  in  close,  strong,  wide  sympathy ;  when 
he  strikes  some  chord  which  vibrates  in  human  hearts 
extensively,  that  act  will  bring  recognition  and  immor- 
tality. The  passengers  on  a  steamship  are  startled 
by  the  cry,  "Man  overboard !"  Instantly  the  ship  is 
put  about,  the  life-boat  is  lowered,  a  dozen  men  offer 
to  man  her;  but  before  the  boat  is  lowered,  a  man 
from  the  deck,  who  has  had  his  eye  on  the  strong 
man  struggling  with  the  waves,  doffs  his  coat,  and 
plunges  in  after  the  imperiled  one.  The  one  for  whose 
rescue  he  has  risked  his  own  life  is  a  stranger  to  him. 
He  helps  him  into  the  life-boat;  but,  before  he  him- 
self has  entered  that  life-boat,  a  shark  has  seized 
him,  and  he  perishes ;  the  rescuer  is  lost.  Whose 
heart,  of  all  those  passengers,  does  not  thrill  with 
profoundest  sympathy  at  this  self-sacrifice  for  a  life? 
A  nation  is  in  peril.  Invaders  or  revolutionists  have 
arrayed  armies  against  the  nation's  life  or  liberty.    A 


COMMEMORATIVE   ADDRESS.  377 

man  enlists  for  its  deliverance.  The  nation  honors 
him.  A  multitude  enlist.  In  bivouac,  and  march, 
and  bloody  field,  and  deadly  hospital,  they  sacrifice 
themselves  on  the  altars  of  a  lofty  patriotism.  Those 
who  return  from  the  wars  are  recognized  and  cher- 
ished by  their  grateful  fellow-countrymen.  Those 
who  fall,  sleep  in  honored  graves.  Flowers  are 
strewed  upon  their  hallowed  dust. 

"How  sleep  the  brave,  who  sink  to  rest, 
By  all  their  country's  wishes  blest! 
When  Spring,  with  dewy  fingers  cold, 
Returns  to  deck  their  hallowed  mold, 
She  there  shall  dress  a  sweeter  sod 
Than  fancy's  feet  have  ever  trod. 

By  fairy  hands  their  knell  is  rung; 
By  forms  unseen  their  dirge  is  sung; 
There  Honor  comes,  a  pilgrim  gray, 
To  bless  the  turf  that  wraps  their  clay; 
And  Freedom  shall  awhile  repair, 
To  dwell  a  weeping  hermit  there." 

Luther  drew  the  world  to  his  side  because  he  wab 
struggling  with  giant  antagonists  to  free  the  world 
from  the  most  cruel  superstitions  and  utter  bondage. 
Wesley  moved  the  great  masses  toward  himself  and 
to  a  higher,  better  life,  because  he  was  unselfishly 
teaching  the  world  of  rivers  of  blessings  flowing  for 
them,  and  to  be  had  without  money  and  without 
price.  Wilberforce  and  Clarkson,  Garrison  and  Phil- 
lips and  Lincoln,  live  in  human  hearts  to-day,  shrined 
and  crowned,  because  they  took  sides  with  the  op- 
pressed, the  weak,  or  the  unfortunate.  This  practical 
sympathy  with  some  intensely-absorbing  thought  or 
need  of  humanity,  something  which  humanity  believes 
urgent  and  important — this  being  equal  to  some  great 
crisis  or  to  some  felt  emergency  will  always  secure 
fame  and  following,  and  earthly  immortality. 


378     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

Why  is  the  memory  of  the  martyrs  so  green? 
They  died  for  the  truth  which  to-day  enriches  the 
world.  Their  firmness  and  constancy,  amid  martyr 
fires,  and  flood,  and  sword,  to  maintain  and  preserve 
for  us  truth  and  freedom,  have  given  them  their  name 

and  their  glory. 

"They  lived  unknown, 
Till  persecution  dragged  them  forth  to  fame, 
And  chased  them  up  to  heaven;  their  ashes  flew, 
No  marble  tells  us  whither." 

It  was  a  like  unselfish  consecration  to  the  cause  of 
country,  and  home,  and  altars,  which  has  made  the  pa- 
triots, reformers,  and  confessors  of  all  ages  the  world's 
great  heroes  to-day. 

We  should  never  forget  that  the  crowning  of  these 
is  as  certain,  even  amid  apparent  defeat,  as  that  day 
succeeds  to  night. 

"They  never  fail  who  die 
In  a  just  cause:  the  block  may  soak  their  gore; 
Their  heads  may  sodden  in  the  sun;  their  limbs 
Be  strung  to  city  gates  and  castle  walls — 
But  still  their  spirit  walks  abroad.    Though  years 
Elapse  and  others  share  as  dark  a  doom, 
They  but  augment  the  deep  and  sweeping  thoughts 
Which  overpower  all  others,  and  conduct 
The  world  at  last  to  freedom." 

The  world  respects  and  loves  honest  men,  who 
have  energy  of  will  and  steadiness  of  purpose  to  work 
their  own  way,  though  mountains  and  oceans  lie  be- 
tween them  and  their  goal ;  strong  men,  mailed  in 
truth,  and  standing  up  for  the  right,  as  they  see 
the  right,  against  overwhelming  numbers.  "Energy 
of  will — self-originating  force" — as  one  has  said,  "is 
the  soul  of  every  great  character.  Where  it  is,  there 
is  life;  where  it  is  not,  there  are  faintness,  helpless- 
ness,  and   despondency.     The   strong   man   and   the 


COMMEMORATIVE  ADDRESS.  379 

waterfall  channel  their  own  path.  The  energetic 
leader,  of  noble  spirit,  not  only  wins  a  way  for  him- 
self •  he  carries  others  with  him."  Thus  it  has  been 
from  the  beginning.  Washington,  Napoleon,  Crom- 
well, Bismarck,  Wesley,  and  Whitefield  and  Moody, 
are  examples  in  point. 

The  world  respects  and  loves  men  of  deep,  strong 
convictions— not     senseless,     graceless,     sentimental 
fops,    sprigs  of  a  windy,   fleshless,  fishy  aristocracy 
with   gloved  fingers  and   soft  clothing;  but   men  of 
faith    and    power,   with    convictions    that    are    living, 
burning  realities;  men  who  dare  to  speak  the  truth, 
even  when  it  is  unpopular ;  men  who  recognize  duty 
and  honor  and  right,  and  who  follow  them,  constant 
as  the  polar  star.     Such  men  are  a  power  while  they 
live    and  the  world  will  never  let  them  be  forgotten, 
even  when  they  are  dead.    Such  a  man  in  a  workshop 
will  give  tone  to  his  fellows,  and   exalt  them  to  a 
better  life     Franklin  is  said  to  have  reformed  the  man- 
ners of  an  entire  office  in  London,  while  he  wrought 
there  as  a  printer.     Such  were  the  men  whom  Crom- 
well chose  for  his  armies,  and  whom  he  styled  "Iron- 
sides" and  "Invincibles."     John  Brown,  whose    'soul 
o-oes  marching  on,"  once  said  to  Emerson  that,  "for 
a  settler  in  a  new  country,  one  good  believing  man 
is  worth  a  hundred— nay,  worth   a  thousand— men 
without  character." 

"Tell  me,"  said  a  French  writer,  "whom  you  ad- 
mire and  I  will  tell  what  you  are  as  to  your  talents, 
tastes  and  character.  Do  you  admire  mean  men? 
Your  own  nature  is  mean.  Do  you  admire  rich  men? 
You  are  of  the  earth,  earthy.  Do  you  admire  men  of 
title?  You  are  a  toad-eater  or  a  tuft-hunter.  Do  you 
admire  honest,  brave,  and  manly  men?  You  are, 
yourself,  of  an  honest,  brave  and  manly  spirit. 
Washington  and  Franklin,  Roger  Sherman  and  Have- 


380     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

lock  and  Lincoln,  and  others,  might  be  cited  as  ex- 
amples and  illustrations  of  the  view  I  have  given. 
They  were  not  brilliant,  showy  men,  but  they  were 
true  men,  honest  men,  solid  men,  men  of  integrity, 
who  would  rather  be  right  than  to  win  a  throne. 

Lord  Bacon  said,  "I  would  rather  believe  all  the 
faiths  in  the  legends,  the  Talmud,  and  the  Alkoran, 
than  that  this  universal  frame  is  without  a  mind."  He 
said  this  when  men  were  clamoring  that  he  was  heter- 
odox. Brave  men,  men  of  courage,  this  world  ap- 
proves. 

"If  thou  canst  plan  a  noble  deed, 
And  never  flag  till  it  succeed, 
Though  in  the  strife  thy  heart  should  bleed, — 
Whatever  obstacles  control, 
Thine  hour  will  come — go  on,  true  soul! 
Thou  'It  win  the  prize,  thou  'It  reach  the  goal." 

Two  thousand  years  ago,  Aristotle  drew  a  portrait 
of  the  magnanimous  man ;  that  is,  the  gentleman. 
It  is  still  true  to  the  life. 

"He  will  behave  with  moderation  under  good  for- 
tune and  bad.  He  will  know  how  to  be  exalted,  and 
how  to  be  abased.  He  will  neither  be  delighted  with 
success,  nor  grieved  by  failure.  He  will  neither  shun 
danger  nor  seek  it,  for  there  are  few  things  which 
he  cares  for.  He  is  reticent  and  somewhat  slow  of 
speech ;  but  he  speaks  his  mind  openly  and  boldly 
when  occasion  calls  for  it.  He  is  not  apt  to  admire ;  for 
nothing  is  great  to  him.  He  overlooks  injuries.  He 
is  not  given  to  talk  about  himself  or  about  others ; 
for  he  does  not  care  that  he  himself  should  be  praised, 
nor  that  others  should  be  blamed.  He  does  not 
cry  about  trifles,  and  he  craves  help  from  none." 

Self-sacrifice  and  devotion  for  the  good  of  others 
give   men   immortality.      The   plague   was   making   a 


COMMEMORATIVE  ADDRESS.  38 1 

desert  of  Marseilles.  It  baffled  all  medical  skill.  The 
physicians  determined,  in  council,  that  a  corpse  must 
be  dissected.  One  of  the  number  solemnly  promised 
that  he  would  devote  himself  for  the  safety  of  others, 
and  that  he  would  dissect  a  corpse.  He  made  his 
will.  The  next  morning  he  redeemed  his  promise — 
carefully  made  all  the  surgical  and  anatomical  exam- 
inations required,  wrote  down  his  observations,  threw 
the  papers  into  a  disinfecting  vase,  left  the  room,  went 
out,  and  died. 

The  cry  of  "mad  dog"  aroused  the  attention  of 
the  blacksmith.  He  saw  that  unless  he  grappled  the 
animal  his  wife  and  children  would  be  bitten  and  die. 
He  seized  the  dog ;  was  again  and  again  bitten ;  but 
he  held  him  until  the  dog  was  dispatched,  and  his 
family  were  saved.  He  then  chained  himself  to  the 
anvil,  and  met  his  awful  death. 

John  Maynard,  the  pilot,  remained  at  the  wheel 
of  the  burning  ship,  guiding  the  vessel  to  the  nearest 
shore,  when  the  flames  had  surrounded  and  scorched 
him,  and  where  at  last  he  died ;  but  every  passenger 
was  saved. 

John  Howard  devoted  his  fortune  and  his  life  to 
the  relief  of  suffering  humanity,  and  at  last  he  fell 
a  victim  to  the  fever  contracted  in  his  visit  to  a  fever- 
stricken  patient.  His  name  is  illustrious.  His  chaplet 
grows  greener  as  the  years  roll  away.  The  thousand 
forms  of  beneficence  which  now  bless  humanity  owe 
their  origin  and  inspiration  to  his  example,  and  to 
the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  which  burned  in 
his  heart. 

And  Good  Samaritan  societies,  and  National 
Christian  Temperance  Unions,  and  Red  Ribbon  and 
Blue  Ribbon  brigades,  and  all  other  organizations  for 
helping  humanity,  are  the  outflow  of  the  grace  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.     It  was  this  which  suggested 


382      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

the  publication  of  the  Life-Boat,  in  which  our  lamented 
friend  and  brother  was  so  forward  and  so  effective. 
His  life,  his  portrait,  his  memory,  all  enforce  devotion 
to  the  work  of  helping  the  needy,  and  rescuing  the 
perishing,  and  raising  up  the  fallen.  How  much  of 
this  needs  to  be  done. 

"There  are  lonely  hearts  to  cherish, 

While  the  days  are  going  by. 
There  are  weary  souls  who  perish, 

While  the  days  are  going  by. 
If  a  smile  we  can  renew, 
As  our  journey  we  pursue, 
O,  the  good  that  we  may  do, 

While  the  days  are  going  by!" 

The  rule  of  John  Howard  in  his  beneficence  was 
this :  "Our  superfluities  should  give  way  to  other 
men's  convenience.  Our  conveniences  should  give 
way  to  other  men's  necessities.  Our  necessities  should 
give  way  to  other  men's  extremities."  How  much 
sunshine  and  gladness  would  come  to  homes  and 
hearts  of  sorrow  if  only  these  rules  were  adopted ! 
Howr  much  this  world  needs  Good  Samaritans ! 

Thomas  Carlyle  says :  "The  whole  world  calls  for 
new  work  and  nobleness.  Subdue  mutiny,  discord, 
widespread  despair,  by  manfulness,  justice,  mercy,  and 
wisdom.  Chaos  is  dark — deep  as  hell.  Let  there  be 
light,  and  there  is,  instead,  a  green,  flowery  world. 
O,  it  is  great,  and  there  is  no  other  greatness !  To 
make  some  work  of  God's  creation  a  little  fruitfuller, 
better,  more  worthy  of  God ;  to  make  some  human 
hearts  a  little  wiser,  manfnller,  happier,  more  blessed, 
less  accursed, — it  is  work  for  a  god.  Sooty  hell  of 
mutiny,  and  savagery,  and  despair,  can,  by  man's  en- 
ergy, be  made  a  kind  of  heaven,  cleansed  of  its  soot, 
of  its  mutiny,  of  its  need  to  mutiny ;  the  everlasting 


APPOINTED   TO    URBANA.  383 

arch  of  heaven  overspreading  it,  too,  and  its  cunning 
mechanisms  and  tall  chimney  steeples  as  a  birth  of 
heaven ;  God  and  all  men  looking  on  it  well  pleased." 
A  dismantled  hull  was  discovered  on  the  ocean. 
She  was  boarded.  They  found  the  skeletons  of  starved 
men  on  the  deck.  One  man  they  found  still  alive. 
They  took  him  off  to  their  ship,  nursed  and  revived 
him.  As  soon  as  he  could  speak,  he  whispered, 
"There  is  another  man."  They  returned  and  found 
him,  and  rescued  him.  Our  brother  and  friend  manned 
the  life-boat,  and  went  to  the  rescue  of  perishing  ones. 
His  mute  lips  on  yonder  canvas  would  say,  if  they 
could  speak,  "There  is  another  man."  Go  for  him, 
brothers  ;  seek  him  ;  rescue  him  ;  save  him. 

And  never  forget,  in  your  need  and  weakness,  Him 
who  is  the  Good  Samaritan  from  heaven  ;  your  brother, 
my  brother ;  who  never  passes  by  on  the  other  side ; 
who  supplies  wine,  and  oil,  and  transportation,  and 
attendance,  and  nursing,  and  healing.  Put  yourselves 
in  his  hands,  and  let  him  apply  the  balm  of  his  mercy 
to  your  weak,  tempted,  weary,  despairing  souls. 

In  1882,  Bishop  Thomas  Bowman  appointed 
me  to  Grace  Church,  Urbana.  Here  were  spent 
three  happy,  useful  years.  I  have  never  had  a  more 
pleasant,  appreciative,  and  well-ordered  officiary 
and  membership  than  I  served  in  Urbana.  Here, 
too,  were  formed  friendships  of  enduring  value. 
It  is  one  of  the  best  charges  in  the  Cincinnati  Con- 
ference for  its  complete  record  in  all  lines  of  mem- 
bers, Church  support,  Sunday-school,  and  benevo- 
lent collections.  Urbana  is  a  most  delightful  city 
of  six  or  seven  thousand  persons.     The  people  are 


384      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK'. 

intelligent,    refined,    prosperous,    hospitable.      Ur- 
bana  has  a  college  under  the  care  of  the  Sweden- 

borgians. 

From  Urbana,  I  was  sent  in  1885  to  Wesley 
Chapel,  Cincinnati,  where,  also,  I  remained  three 
years.  The  people  desired  and  expected  my  return 
for  the  remaining  two  years  of  my  possible  stay; 
but  I  was  removed  from  Wesley  to  Central  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church,  Springfield,  in  1888.  We 
had  three  years  of  revival  work  in  Wesley.  The 
two  most  notable  events  in  the  Wesley  pastorate 
were  the  thorough  renovation  of.  the  church,  cost- 
ing about  three  thousand  dollars,  all  of  which  was 
paid  when  the  church  was  reopened.  The  other 
event  was  the  preaching  of  a  sermon,  June  17, 
1888,  on  occasion  of  the  celebration  of  the  one 
hundredth  anniversary  of  the  founding  of  Cincin- 
nati. As  this  contains  much  historic  information 
in  reference  to  early  Methodism  in  Southwestern 
Ohio,  and  especially  gives  a  carefully-prepared 
history  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  Cin- 
cinnati, it  is  presented  here  complete: 

CENTENNIAL  SERMON. 

"Remember  the  days  of  old,  consider  the  years  of  many 
generations:  ask  thy  father,  and  he  will  shew  thee;  thy  elders, 
and  they  will  tell  thee.  When  the  Most  High  divided  to  the 
nations  their  inheritance,  when  he  separated  the  sons  of 
Adam,  he  set  the  bounds  of  the  people  according  to  the  num- 
ber of  the  children  of  Israel.  For  the  Lord's  portion  is  his 
people;  Jacob  is  the  lot  of  his  inheritance.  He  found  him  in 
a  desert  land,  and  in  the  waste  howling  wilderness;  he  led 
him  about,  he  instructed  him,  he  kept  him  as  the  apple  of  his 
eve.  As  an  eagle  stirreth  up  her  nest,  fluttereth  over  her 
young,  spreadeth  abroad  her  wings,  taketh  them,  beareth  them 


CENTENNIAL   SERMON,    1 888.  385 

on  her  wings:  so  the  Lord  alone  did  lead  him,  and  there  was 
no  strange  god  with  him.  He  made  him  ride  on  the  high 
places  of  the  earth,  that  he  might  eat  the  increase  of  the 
fields;  and  he  made  him  to  suck  honey  out  of  the  rock,  and 
oil  out  of  the  flinty  rock ;  butter  of  kiue,  and  milk  of  sheep, 
with  fat  of  lambs,  and  rams  of  the  breed  of  Bashan,  and 
goats  with  the  fat  of  kidneys  of  wheat ;  and  thou  didst  drink 
the  pure  blood  of  the  grape." — Deut.  xxxii,  7-14. 

At  the  ripe  age  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  years, 
about  to  cease  from  being  the  leader  of  Israel,  Moses 
is  giving  his  parting  words  to  the  people  of  the  Lord. 
This  address  contains  memories  and  warnings.  Moses 
teaches  them,  in  a  most  affecting  manner,  the  duty  of 
remembering  what  God  had  done  for  them  and  for 
their  fathers.  He  urges  this  duty  by  several  consid- 
erations : 

1.  They  would  learn,  thus,  the  true  way  to  great- 
ness, honor,  and  success.  In  "the  days  of  old,"  when 
they  were  obediently  under  God's  direction  and  care, 
this  prosperity  was  real  and  grand. 

2.  To  recall  God's  kindly  and  wonderful  dealings 
with  them  in  "the  years  of  many  generations,"  would 
be  to  excite  living  gratitude  to  God. 

3.  To  remember  the  former  times  would  assist 
them  in  correcting  any  existing  irregularities,  or  de- 
viations from  rectitude.  By  these  back-sights  the 
crooked  line  could  be  straightened,  and  the  future 
advance  in  the  way  their  fathers  had  walked,  when 
God  led  them  in  the  wilderness,  would  be  in  right 
lines.  Paul  teaches  the  philosophy  of  this  when  he 
says:  "Whereunto  we  have  already  attained,  let  us 
walk  by  the  same  rule,  let  us  mind  the  same  things." 

From  this  text,  then,  we  gather  several  lessons, 

viz. :  God's  people  are  his  portion  and  the  lot  of  his 

inheritance ;  and  God  takes  care  of  them.     God  sets 

bounds   to   his   people's   times   and   habitations.      He 

25 


386      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

gives  them  the  lot  of  their  inheritance — when  men 
recognize  that  they  dwell  safely  and  in  content.  The 
review  in  the  case  of  Israel  presents  such  an  advance 
that  the  former  times  and  these  are  in  contrast.  He 
found  them  in  bondage ;  he  brought  them  into  lib- 
erty. He  led  them  through  the  wilderness ;  but  he 
brought  them  and  planted  them  in  a  land  of  corn  and 
wine.  God  led  them ;  compassed  them  about ;  treated 
them  as  an  eagle  treats  her  young  in  teaching  them 
to  fly.  God  made  them  ride  upon  the  high  places  of 
power,  that  they  might  share  the  increase  and  fat- 
ness of  the  land.  As  they  remembered  all  this,  they 
would  be  kept  in  right  lines.  When  surveyors  are 
running  straight  meridian  lines  they  sometimes,  with 
great  profit,  take  a  back-sight,  and  compare  that  with 
their  fore-sights,  so  that  the  continuous  line  shall  be 
undeviating.  And  if  all  this  was  profitable  for  those 
of  the  olden  times,  it  will  also  be  profitable  for  us  to 
"consider  the  years  of  many  generations." 

History  must  be  studied  as  a  whole,  and  not  in 
detached  parts.  All  things  and  all  people  are  parts 
of  a  great  system.  If  there  had  been  no  settlement 
of  Cincinnati  a  hundred  years  ago,  there  could  be  no 
centennial  now.  If  there  had  been  no  Wesley  Chapel, 
the  civilization  of  Cincinnati  would  have  been  differ- 
ent from  what  it  is.  Go  into  all  the  departments  of  a 
cotton  factory,  and  they  all  bear  relation  to  one  result — 
the  making  of  cloth.  If  Oliver  M.  Spencer  had  not 
been  rescued  from  the  Indians,  his  life  would  have 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  progress  of  civilization  in 
our  city. 

A  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  John  Wesley  went 
up  and  down  through  England  preaching  of  Jesus 
and  salvation.  The  civilization  of  this  world  of  ours 
feels  the  pulse  and  throb  of  John  Wesley's  life,  and  it 
will  continue  to  feci  them  to  the  end  of  time.     The 


CENTENNIAL   SERMON,    l888.  387 

influence  of  Christianity  on  civilization  is  shown  in 
several  ways :  Christianity  forbids  habits  of  conduct 
fatal  to  a  high  civilization,  such  as  idleness,  profli- 
gacy, dissipation,  loose  social  relations.  Christianity 
inculcates  and  induces  industry,  energy,  and  the  pro- 
duction and  accumulation  of  property.  .  Christianity 
prevents  strikes,  and  promotes  harmonious  relations 
between  labor  and  capital.  While  the  showing  of 
Cincinnati  Methodism  is  not  what  we  could  have 
wished ;  while,  as  will  be  seen,  it  has  not  kept  pace 
with  the  population,  yet  what  would  the  civilization 
of  Cincinnati  have  been  to-day  if  there  had  not  been, 
all  through  the  last  hundred  years,  the  presence  and 
the  power  of  an  active,  earnest  Christianity? 

This  is  Cincinnati's  centennial  year.  Our  Exposi- 
tion opens  on  the  coming  Fourth  of  July.  In  noting 
the  various  lines  of  progress  made  in  a  hundred  years, 
the  Exposition  Commissioners  request  pastors  to 
preach  historical  sermons,  and  all  Churches  to  send 
up  to  the  Exposition  halls  photographs  of  their  several 
churches  and  of  deceased  ministers,  and  this  depart- 
ment is  expected  to  contain  the  evidences  of  moral 
and  religious  advancement.  The  Churches  and  their 
history  will  be  there.  We  can  note  their  advancement 
"that  we  may  tell  it  to  the  generations  following."  As 
we  point  to  these  monuments,  we  may  well  take  up  the 
refrain,  "This  God  is  our  God  forever  and  ever.  He 
will  be  our  guide,  even  unto  death." 

Within  a  hundred  years  the  hills  and  forests 
around  this  region  echoed  the  strokes  of  the  wood- 
man's ax.  Now,  in  six  thousand  manufacturing 
establishments,  the  hum  of  industry  makes  music 
every  secular  day  of  the  year,  and  the  smoke  from 
thousands  of  chimney-stacks  rises  toward  heaven. 

The  capital  brought  here  a  hundred  years  ago  was 
limited  to  the  barest  necessaries  of  life.     The  taxable 


388      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

personal  property  of  Cincinnati  is  assessed  at  $130- 
000,000.  The  real  estate  is  $50,000,000,  yielding  a 
revenue  of  four  millions  of  dollars.  Ninety-five  thou- 
sand persons  are  employed  in  manufactories.  Eighty 
millions  of  dollars  cash  capital  and  fifty  millions  of 
dollars  in  real  estate  are  invested  and  employed  in 
manufacturing  plants,  yielding  an  annual  product  of 
two  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  The  property  of  the 
State  of  Ohio  amounts  to  $3,198,062,000. 

Then  we  had  no  churches  and  schools.  Now, 
churches  are  in  all  parts  of  the  city,  and  every  child 
here  can  attend  schools  of  various  grades,  from  ele- 
mentary to  collegiate,  while  two  large  libraries,  and 
a  full  law  library,  afford  the  means  of  acquiring 
knowledge.  To  gather  and  tabulate  these  astounding 
facts  of  material  progress  is  comparatively  easy.  Dol- 
lars, and  stocks,  and  farms,  and  houses,  and  bank  cir- 
culation can  be  counted  without  serious  difficulty. 

But  moral  results  can  not  be  measured  nor  tabu- 
lated. They  are  intangible.  A  man  receives  a  moral 
impulse  which  sends  him  up  and  on  in  the  path  of 
progress.  A  thousand,  ten  thousand,  multiplied  by 
tens  or  scores,  receive  like  impulses,  and  they  in  turn 
communicate  them  to  others.  Moral  influences  curb 
and  restrain  evil  passions  and  criminal  purposes,  pre- 
vent vagrancy,  and  promote  industry  and  thrift.  You 
can  see  some  of  the  effects  of  them ;  some  of  the 
achievements  started  or  impelled  by  these  moral  in- 
fluences ;  but  you  can  not  measure  nor  weigh  the 
forces  themselves.  Let  us  to-day  look  over  this  field 
of  moral  action,  and  see  what  we  can  gather  of  inspir- 
ing truth,  of  encouraging  precedent, and  of  stimulating 
motive;  and  let  us  pray  that  God  may  assist  our  in- 
quiries and  bless  our  discoveries. 

(  )ther  denominations  will  trace  the  lines  of  their 
history  and  achievements.     It  will  be  ours  to  follow 


CENTENNIAL    SERMON,    1 888.  389 

Up  the  history  of  our  advent  and  progress,  as  Meth- 
odists, in  this  part  of  the  Ohio  Valley. 

Ninety-five  years  ago  the  first  Methodist  sermon 
was  preached  in  old  Fort  Washington,  by  a  local 
preacher  named  Francis  Clark,  from  Kentucky.  A 
Methodist  sermon  was  preached  near  Cincinnati,  on 
the  road  to  Hamilton,  two  years  later,  by  James 
Smith.  Flis  theme  was  the  angel's  announcement  to 
the  shepherds  of  Bethlehem.  His  text  was,  "Behold, 
I  bring  you  good  tidings  of  great  joy,  which  shall  be 
to  all  people." 

Eighty-four  years  ago,  John  Collins,  a  local 
preacher  living  in  Clermont  County,  came  to  Cincin- 
nati to  buy  salt.  He  made  his  purchases  of  Thomas 
Carter,  on  Main  Street,  near  the  river.  He  then  in- 
quired if  there  were  any  Methodists  in  the  town. 
"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Carter,  "and  I  am  one."  Overjoyed 
by  this  news,  Mr.  Collins  embraced  Mr.  Carter,  and 
wept  upon  his  neck.  Mr.  Collins  proposed  to  preach 
if  a  place  could  be  found.  Mr.  Carter  offered  a  room 
in  his  own  house.  That  night  Mr.  Collins  preached 
with  marked  interest  to  twelve  persons.  In  that 
house,  that  evening,  were  gathered  all  the  Methodists 
Cincinnati  then  contained.*  That  was  the  second 
Methodist  sermon  in  Cincinnati.  Yet  Methodist 
preaching  had  been  heard  and  Methodist  societies 
had  been  formed  at  Milford  and  at  Pleasant  Hill. 

In  1804,  John  Sale  was  appointed,  by  Bishop  As- 
bury,  to  the  Miami  Circuit,  which  then  included  nearly 
or  quite  all  the  territory  now  within  the  bounds  of  the 


*A  writer  in  the  Cincinnati  Commercial  Gazette,  July 
2ist,  claims  that  Philip  Gatch  preached  the  first  sermon  in 
Cincinnati  in  1798.  This  is  obviously  a  mistake.  Judge 
McLean,  wl  o  had  access  to  the  papers  of  Mr.  Gatch,  and  who 
wrote  his  biography,  and  also  that  of  Mr.  Collins,  ascribes  the 
honor  to  Mr.  Collins  and  not  to  Mr.  Gatch. 


390      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

Cincinnati  Conference.  Miami  Circuit  had  been  in 
the  list  of  Methodist  charges  since  1800,  with  a  vary- 
ing membership  of  from  one  hundred  and  fifty  to  five 
hundred  members. 

Mr.  Sale  visited  Cincinnati.  He  found  a  Meth- 
odist class  of  eight  persons  not  yet  regularly  enrolled. 
He  preached  in  a  hotel  kept  by  George  Gordon,  on 
Main  Street,  between  Front  and  Second  Streets.  After 
preaching,  he  formed  the  members  present  in  the  first 
properly-constituted  Methodist  class  in  Cincinnati. 
James  Gibson  was  appointed  leader.  The  other  mem- 
bers were:  Mrs.  Gibson,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  St.  Clair,  and 
Thomas  Carter,  his  wife,  a  son,  and  a  daughter.  That 
son  became  a  judge  of  one  of  the  Cincinnati  courts. 
The  daughter  became  the  mother  of  Ex-Governor 
Dennison. 

A  Methodist  Discipline  of  181 2  was  found  recently 
in  Dayton,  with  this  inscription,  in  substance : 

To  John  Sale. — This  Discipline  got  into  my  hands  in 
some  way.     It  belongs  to  John  Sale. 

(Signed,)  Francis  Asbury. 

From  the  time  of  Mr.  Sale's  first  sermon  in  Cin- 
cinnati, in  1804,  it  was  made  one  of  the  regular 
preaching  places  on  the  Miami  Circuit,  being  visited 
by  one  of  the  circuit  preachers  every  two  weeks. 
There  was  no  fixed  place  of  meeting.  Sometimes  it 
was  held  in  a  log  school-house  under  the  hill,  some- 
times at  Brother  Newcome's,  on  Sycamore  Street, 
sometimes  at  Thomas  Carter's,  and  sometimes  in  a 
barn,  near  the  foot  of  Main  Street.  The  number  of  the 
Methodists  steadily  increased.  In  1806,  or  in  1807, 
probably  in  the  former  year,  the  first  Methodist  church 
was  built  in  Cincinnati,  a  stone  edifice,  on  the  pres- 
ent site  of  Wesley  Chapel,  Fifth  Street,  between  Syca- 
more and  Broadway,  on  the  north  side.     It  was  a 


CENTENNIAL   SERMON,    1 888.  39 1 

small,  square,  one-story  building.  Soon,  needing  en- 
largement, this  was  afforded  by  building  unsightly 
brick  additions  on  the  east  and  west  sides. 

The  lot  for  the  church  and  burying-ground  was 
deeded  by  James  Kirby  to  five  trustees,  "for  the  use  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States 
of  America."  The  lot  was  originally  two  hundred 
feet  square,  extending  from  the  alleys,  cutting  the 
block  centrally  north  and  south  and  east  and  west  to 
Broadway  and  Fifth  Streets,  and  from  Fifth  to  Sixth 
Streets,  being  the  entire  southeast  corner  of  the  block. 

In  1805  there  were  734  members  in  the  Miami 
Circuit.  Of  these  there  may  have  been  twenty-five  or 
thirty  in  Cincinnati. 

In  1806  the  enrollment  was  893,  of  whom  there 
were  perhaps  thirty  or  forty  in  Cincinnati. 

In  1807  the  Minutes  show  Miami  Circuit  757  mem- 
bers;  Mad  River  Circuit,  332  members — 1,089  mem- 
bers in  all.  Of  the  members  on  the  Miami  Circuit, 
there  may  have  been  fifty  or  sixty  in  Cincinnati. 
There  was  no  separate  enrollment  nor  designation  of 
members  in  Cincinnati  until  18 14,  when  226  mem- 
bers are  reported. 

In  1809  the  name  Cincinnati  first  appears  in  the 
Minutes.  It  obviously  included  a  large  part  of  Miami 
Circuit.  Twelve  hundred  and  eighty-two  members 
are  reported  for  that  year,  of  whom  perhaps  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  were  in  Cincinnati.  In  1807, 
Benjamin  Lakin  and  John  Collins  were  appointed  on 
Miami  Circuit.  Probably  the  stone  church  had  al- 
ready been  erected.  It  was  small,  square,  and  un- 
sightly. Three  services  were  held  on  the  Sabbath — 
morning,  afternoon,  and  evening.  There  were  also  a 
Sunday-school  and  class-meeting  held  each  Lord's- 
day.  Class-meetings  have  always  been  a  special  fea- 
ture of  Wesley  Chapel.    Mr.  J.  P.  Kilbreth,  of  a  later 


392      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

day,  attended  a  sunrise  class-meeting,  in  a  small,  frame 
building,  used  also  for  an  office,  and  which  stood  on 
the  spacious  church  lot.  There  he  met  Judge 
McLean,  who  regularly  attended,  and  who  may  have 
been  the  leader. 

Wesley  and  its  predecessor  have  always  been  con- 
spicuous places  in  Cincinnati.  About  the  time  of  the 
War  of  1812,  General  Hull  and  his  staff  passed 
through  Cincinnati,  and  attended  divine  worship  in 
Wesley. 

When  Wesley  was  built  it  was  often  opened  for 
general  purposes,  because  of  its  size.  It  was  for  many 
years  the  largest  audience-room  in  the  city.  Fourth 
of  July  and  Masonic  celebrations  were  held  in  Wes- 
ley ;  the  same  was  true  as  to  school  anniversaries ;  and 
notably  those  of  the  Cincinnati  Wesleyan  College. 
In  1843,  when  Mt.  Adams  Observatory  was  publicly 
opened  by  John  Quincy  Adams,  his  address  was  de- 
livered in  Wesley. 

Nearly  all  the  Cincinnati  Methodist  Churches 
sprang  from  Wesley.  One  of  the  first  colonies  from 
this  goodly  mother  of  Cincinnati  Methodism  wras  the 
Old  Brick  Church,  Plum  and  Fourth,  commonly,  for 
years,  called  Brimstone  Corner.  After  some  years, 
the  members  of  the  Old  Brick  bought  land  on  the 
west  side  of  Western  Row,  now  Central  Avenue,  and 
built  Morris  Chapel.  Twenty  years  ago  they  moved 
to  the  corner  of  Smith  and  Seventh,  and  erected  the 
elegant  and  commodious  structure  known  as  St.  Paul 
Church.  Later  offshoots  from  Wesley  wrere  McKen- 
dree,  Asbury,  and  Trinity.  For  a  long  time  Asbury 
and  McKendree  buildings  were  rented  for  day-schools, 
Asbury  for  four  dollars  a  month,  and  McKendree  for 
thirty-two  dollars  a  year.  Around  the  old  Stone 
Church  the  native  trees  were  still  standing,  the  wor- 
shipers being  accustomed  to  tie  their  horses  to  them 


CENTENNIAL   SERMON,    l888.  393 

during  divine  service.  But  these  soon  disappeared,  to 
make  way  for  the  buildings  and  streets. 

December  25,  1829,  the  Official  Board  of  Wesley 
decided  to  build  a  new  church  edifice.  Josiah  Law- 
rence submitted  a  plan  of  a  church  drafted  by  Caleb 
Williams.  That  board  consisted  of  Matthew  Benson, 
Robert  Richardson,  Christopher  Smith,  Isaac  Covalt, 
Josiah  Lawrence,  Benjamin  Stewart,  William  Bate- 
man,  Oliver  M.  Spencer.  Mr.  Spencer  was  father  of 
the  late  Henry  E.  Spencer,  ex-mayor  of  Cincinnati. 
The  church  was  to  be  built  of  brick,  ninety-five  feet 
long  by  seventy  feet  wide,  two  stories  high  above 
ground,  and  a  basement  story ;  a  vestibule  in  the  main 
story ;  a  gallery  on  the  sides,  supported  by  pillars,  but 
no  pillars  in  the  gallery.  The  cupola  was  to  have  a 
foundation  carried  to  the  roof.  The  house  was  to  be 
in  rear  of  the  stone  church.  O.  M.  Spencer,  Isaac 
Covalt,  and  Matthew  Benson  were  the  building  com- 
mittee. F.  Hand  was  to  superintend  the  carpenter- 
work  at  one  dollar  twelve  and  a  half  cents  per  day. 
I.  Covalt  superintended  the  brick-work.  The  plaster- 
ing was  done  by  Ezekiel  Thorp.  During  the  erection 
of  the  building,  religious  services  were  held  in  the 
court-house  and  in  different  churches  of  the  city. 

Among  the  honored  names  of  the  early  members 
of  Wesley,  besides  those  1  have  given,  were  those  of 
William  Burke,  a  superannuated  preacher,  and,  for 
several  years,  city  postmaster;  Adonijah  Peacock, 
John  and  William  McLean,  John  Elstner,  James  and 
John  Walls,  Arnold  Truesdell,  William  Wood,  and 
others. 

After  the  church  was  built,  the  Official  Board  de- 
cided that  the  women  should  occupy  the  seats  to  the 
right  of  the  aisles  leading  from  the  front  down  to  the 
pulpit,  and  the  men  the  seats  to  the  left  of  the 
:  isles.      It   was   also  provided   that,   if  the   men   and 


394     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

women  were  found  sitting  together,  the  sexton  or 
the  trustees  should  separate  them. 

May  31,  1833,  the  trustees  passed  an  order  forbid- 
ding persons  from  leaving  the  house  in  time  of  pub- 
lic worship,  crowding  into  the  pews  past  those  who 
were  sitting  in  them,  and  slamming  the  doors  in  going 
out  of  the  house.  The  order  declared  that  such  con- 
duct showed  disrespect  for  the  worshipers,  and  for  the 
worship  of  God,  and  was  a  mark  of  ill-breeding. 
They  also  passed  a  resolution  recommending  that  re- 
spect was  due,  and  should  be  paid,  to  aged  persons, 
and  providing  that  the  front  row  of  seats  should  be 
reserved  for  those  of  advanced  years. 

The  lecture-room  was  erected  in  1859,  m  Part  ^rom 
the  proceeds  of  a  bequest  of  one  thousand  dollars  left 
for  that  purpose  by  some  deceased  member  of  the 
church. 

The  building  of  Wesley  Chapel  was  begun  Decem- 
ber 25,  1829.  It  was  dedicated  December  25,  183 1. 
It  is  a  very  plain,  substantial  building,  resembling,  in 
its  main  features,  City  Road  Chapel,  built  by  Mr. 
Wesley  in  London.  In  its  day  it  was  one  of  the  best 
churches  in  the  country.  It  cost  about  twenty  thou- 
sand dollars.  It  has  been  the  birthplace  of  many  hun- 
dreds, perhaps  thousands,  of  souls.  Grand  sermons 
have  been  preached  here  by  some  of  the  noblest  and 
most  renowned  of  ministers.  Displays  of  Divine 
power  were  witnessed  here  at  times  which  were  won- 
derful. A  lady  is  now  living  who  saw,  in  Wesley, 
scores  lying  prostrate  and  unconscious,  overpowered 
by  religious  influence. 

For  years  Wesley  was  one  of  the  finest  and  cost- 
liest churches  in  Cincinnati.  On  that  memorable 
Christmas  day,  in  1831,  three  renowned  and  eloquent 
ministers  preached  the  three  sermons.  Bishop  Soule, 
then  living  in  Lebanon,  Ohio,  was  to  have  preached 


CENTENNIAL   SERMON,    1888.  395 

the  first  sermon  and  dedicated  the  church.  He  failed 
tc  appear.  E.  W.  Sehon,  one  of  the  pastors,  preached 
the  morning  sermon.  In  the  afternoon,  Burr  H. 
McCown,  a  professor  in  Augusta  College,  preached. 
At  night,  H.  B.  Bascom,  also  a  professor  in  Augusta 
College,  officiated. 

In  the  summer  of  1858,  under  the  pastorate  of 
Asbury  Lowrey,  Wesley  Chapel  was  thoroughly  re- 
fitted and  improved  at  a  cost  of  three  thousand  dol- 
lars, and  on  the  18th  day  of  July,  1858,  the  reopening 
sermon  was  preached  by  Rev.  E.  W.  Sehon  who, 
twenty-seven  years  before,  had  preached  the  dedica- 
tory sermon.  At  a  like  expense  the  Sunday-school 
room  was  erected.  In  December,  1858,  the  lecture- 
room,  in  the  rear  of  the  main  building,  was  dedicated 
by  Bishop  Morris.  In  these  reopening  services  many 
were  present  who  witnessed  the  first  dedication  in 
1 83 1.  One  was  present,  when  the  church  was  re- 
opened in  1887,  who  attended  the  reopening  in  1858, 
and  also  in  1876.  Under  the  pastorate  of  Sylvester 
Weeks,  in  1876  or  1877,  the  church  was  put  in  repair, 
and  was  reopened  with  appropriate  services.  A  some- 
what fuller  account  of  the  repairs  and  improvements 
put  upon  Wesley,  in  the  spring  of  1887,  deserves 
notice. 

The  improvements,  which  began  the  previous  year 
by  the  granite  pavement  fronting  the  church  and  par- 
sonage, at  a  cost  of  about  seven  hundred  dollars,  con- 
sisted of  replacing  the  windows  with  beautiful  cathe- 
dral glass  in  elegant  designs,  those  on  the  wTest  side 
being  protected  by  wire  screens  on  the  outside.  The 
walls  were  refrescoed  in  terra-cotta  tint  and  with  suit- 
able inscriptions  about  the  pulpit  walls,  including  the 
Apostles'  Creed  and  the  Lord's  Prayer.  The  pulpit 
was  projected  from  the  rear  wall,  sufficiently  to  admit 
of  a   choir  and   organ   platform   behind   the   pulpit. 


396      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

Triple  gas-burners  replaced  the  old,  dim,  and  dingy 
double  ones.  The  wood-work  was  repainted  and  var- 
nished. The  vestibule  was  covered  with  hemp  mat- 
ting. The  audience-room  was  recarpeted  with  well- 
adapted  carpets.  The  whole  involved  a  cost  of  about 
three  thousand  dollars.  The  improvements  were  con- 
ceived and  carried  forward  by  the  Wesley  Chapel 
Beneficent  Society,  whose  members,  male  and  female, 
displayed  great  energy  and  liberality  in  promoting 
the  enterprise.  It  would  be  unjust  not  to  make  special 
and  honorable  mention  of  William  G.  Roberts,  James 
G.  Rutter,  Charles  R.  Martin,  Newton  B.  Collord, 
J.  A.  Jones,  I.  F.  Tunison,  S.  M.  Martin,  and  their 
ladies,  who  were  active  and  effective  in  advancing  the 
work. 

On  the  first  day  of  May,  1887,  the  pastor,  Rev. 
Dr.  Pearne,  by  special  request  of  the  Wresley  Chapel 
Beneficent  Society,  preached  the  reopening  sermon. 
The  basket-collection  amounted  to  some  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  dollars.  In  the  afternoon  a  union  love- 
feast  was  held,  conducted  by  the  presiding  elder, 
Charles  W.  Ketcham.  Dr.  Isaac  W.  Joyce  called  for 
subscriptions,  and  some  five  hundred  dollars  were  pre- 
sented. The  debt  for  the  improvements  was  all  pro- 
vided for,  and  the  elegant  audience-room  of  Wesley 
is  as  comfortable  and  inviting  as  that  of  any  church 
in  Cincinnati.  Of  the  notable  subscriptions  toward 
this  expense,  from  those  not  members  of  Wesley, 
should  be  mentioned  those  of  Mrs.  Jane  Banks,  $100; 
Mrs.  Bishop  Clark,  $50;  a  brother  in  Indiana,  $50; 
R.  M.  Moore,  of  Elizabeth,  New  Jersey,  $50;  and 
Payne  and  Mrs.  Pettibone,  of  Wyoming,  Pa.,  $100. 

Since  Wesley  was  erected,  how  marvelous  has  been 
the  growth  of  this  goodly  city!  The  population  of 
Cincinnati  in  1831,  when  Wesley  was  built,  was  per- 
haps twenty-five  thousand.     There  were  five  Meth- 


CENTENNIAL   SERMON,    1 888.  397 

odist  churches,  as  many  Methodist  ministers,  and  one 
thousand  two  hundred  and  forty-two  members  of  the 
Church. 

When  Wesley  was  dedicated,  there  was  not  a  single 
Methodist  in  Chicago,  nor  anything  else,  except  a 
small  hamlet  hovering  about  the  United  States  mili- 
tary post  existing  there.  The  next  year  Jesse  Walker, 
who  went  there  and  wrought  as  a  missionary,  returned 
ten  members.  Now  Chicago  has  far  outstripped  Cin- 
cinnati in  population,  and  commerce,  and  churches. 

In  1858,  when  Wesley  was  reopened,  the  popula- 
tion of  Cincinnati  was  given  at  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
seven  thousand.  There  were  twenty  churches,  as 
many  ministers,  and  nearly  four  thousand  members. 
Now,  after  twenty-seven  years,  Wesley  was  again  re- 
opened. Including  the  suburbs  on  both  sides  of  the 
river,  which  are  really  a  part  of  Cincinnati,  the  popu- 
lation has  probably  doubled  itself  in  those  years.  It 
is  a  city  of  solid  wealth  and  substantial  dwellings, 
warehouses,  and  manufactories.  There  are  twice  as 
many  Methodists  ministers  and  churches  now  as  then, 
and  some  eight  or  nine  thousand  members. 

From  1 80 1  to  1809  eleven  different  preachers  were 
stationed  on  the  Miami  Circuit,  which  included  Ham- 
ilton and  Clermont  Counties,  and  seven  or  eight  coun- 
ties north  of  them.  From  18 10  to  1834  thirty-five 
ministers  in  all  were  stationed  in  Cincinnati.  From 
1834  to  1840,  when  Wesley,  McKendree,  and  Morris 
Chapel  (Fourth  and  Plum)  were  the  only  Methodist 
Churches  in  the  city  (Wesley  and  McKendree  were 
either  called  Wesley  or  East  Charge),  eleven  pastors 
were  stationed  in  Cincinnati.  Since  1840  Wesley  has 
been  a  distinct  charge,  and  twenty-six  pastors  have 
succeeded  each  other,  one  of  them,  J.  T.  Mitchell, 
serving  two  terms.  Of  these  pastors,  thirteen  have 
ascended.    Those  remaining  are  Bishop  Foster,  M.  P. 


39S      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

Gaddis  and  J.  L.  Grover,  Drs.  Trimble,  Miley,  Low- 
rey,  Dustin,  Weeks,  Pearne,  William  I.  Fee,  A.  N. 
Spahr,  G.  W.  Kelly,  and  T.  J.  Harris. 

Of  members  of  the  Methodist  Church  in  Cincin- 
nati, including  probationers,  in  the  early  years  of  the 
century,  the  list  is  as  follows,  viz. : 


1814, 226 

1815, 264 

1816, 310 

1817, 318 

1818, 462 


1819, 633 

1820 608 

1823, 633 

1825, 785 


In  Wesley  and  its  predecessor  thirty-one  different 
ministers  have  been  stationed,  one  year  each.  Seven- 
teen have  been  stationed  in  Wesley  and  the  old  stone, 
each  two  years.  Four  have  preached  four  years  each 
in  the  old  stone  and  in  Wesley.  These  are  John  Col- 
lins^. W.  Sehon,  J.  M.  Trimble,  and  John  T.  Mitchell. 
Fourteen  have  preached  in  Wesley  or  the  old  stone 
three  years  each.  The  last  eight  pastors  in  Wesley 
have  been  three  years  each. 

Wresley  has  been  a  station  since  1841.  The  first 
four  years  of  that  term  the  station  included  Asbury 
and  McKendree.  The  last  forty-three  years  it  has 
been  a  separate  charge  or  a  station  by  itself.  Since 
1845  twenty-one  different  pastors  have  ministered 
here.  Of  these,  four  served  only  one  year  each.  John 
T.  Mitchell  served  four  years.  Eight  pastors  staid 
two  years  each,  and  eight  three  years  each.  This  is 
an  honorable  record,  creditable  alike  to  the  pastors 
who  served  and  the  Church  which  shared  their  abun- 
dant and  acceptable  ministrations. 

What   has   Wesley    been   as   to    its    membership? 

From  1841  to  1851  the  average  membership  was  518 

"        1851    "    1861     "           "  "                 "     304 

1861    "    1871    "           "  "                 "     315 

1871    "    1881     "           "  "                 "     325 

1881    "    1888    "           "  "                 "    406 


CENTENNIAL   SERMON,   1888.  399 

Until  the  present  pastorate,  the  largest  number  of 
probationers  and  members  reported  was  in  1844— five 
hundred  and  thirty. 

What  has  Wesley  effected?  Of  course,  in  answer- 
ing this  question,  only  proximate  facts  can  be  given, 
and  these  can  not  be  measured  in  the  sweep  of  their 
influence.  An  average  of  forty  conversions  a  year  in 
Wesley  and  its  predecessor  would  give  the  aggregate 
of  three  thousand  and  forty  conversions.  The  average 
is  probably  much  higher  than  is  here  named.  Under 
seven  pastorates,  selected  from  personal  knowledge  or 
reliable  information,  there  were  two  thousand  and 
seven  hundred,  conversions,  leaving  fifty-five  pastor- 
ates, which  would  doubtless  average  thirty-five  each, 
adding  nineteen  hundred  and  twenty-five  conversions, 
making  nearly  five  thousand  and  two  hundred  con- 
versions in  this  God-honored  Church.  An  average 
of  thirty  deaths  a  year  would  give  an  aggregate  of 
two  thousand  four  hundred,  who,  since  this  Church 
was  organized,  have  ascended  to  their  crowning. 

What  Wesley  has  given  for  missions  has  been  tab- 
ulated in  the  General  Minutes  for  only  thirty-one 
years.  Prior  to  that,  whatever  was  given  can  only  be 
conjectured,  as  no  publication  was  made  of  it. 

From  1857  to  1867  Wesley  gave  for  missions, 
$5,692 ;  average  per  year  of  $570.  The  average  per 
year,  per  member,  was  $1.74- 

From  1867  to  1877  Wesley  gave  for  missions, 
$5,519;  average  per  year  of  $552.  The  average  per 
year,  per  member,  was  $1.85. 

From  1877  to  1888  Wesley  gave  for  missions, 
$3,256;  average  per  year  of  $296.  The  average  per 
year,  per  member,  was  90  cents. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  contributions  for  missions 
for  the  past  eleven  years  have  perceptibly  shrunk. 
The  explanation  is  found  in  the  fact  that  Wesley  has 


400     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

been  depleted  of  wealthy  members  by  the  Churches 
of  the  city  and  suburbs,  and  that,  up  to  the  last  decade, 
the  missionary  collection  was  the  principal  and  almost 
the  only  one.  Since  then  the  Church  Extension, 
Freedmen's  Aid,  and  other  Conference  collections,  if 
added  to  that  for  missions,  would  probably  swell  the 
aggregate  annual  contributions  of  Wesley  up  to  the 
figures  from  1857  to  1867. 

In  1844,  under  the  pastorate  of  J.  M.  Trimble,  the 
parsonage  was  built.  Dr.  Trimble  himself  dug  the 
vault  for  the  cistern,  which  still  remains,  a  mute  wit- 
ness to  his  industry. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  consider,  with  some  atten- 
tion, the  names  and  characters  of  some  of  the  grand 
old  ministers  who  have  served  as  pastors  in  Wesley 
Chapel.  Among  the  honored  names  of  those  who 
have  ministered  in  the  old  stone  church  is  that  of 
John  P.  Durbin.  His  senior  colleague  was  the  re- 
vered and  immortal  William  H.  Raper.  They  suc- 
ceeded the  almost  equally  eminent  Russel  Bigelow 
and  Truman  Bishop.  The  next  year,  1826,  Mr.  Dur- 
bin was  a  professor  in  Augusta  College.  His  first 
charge,  to  which  he  went  from  the  cabinetmaker's 
bench,  was  Greenville  Circuit,  which  covered  a  large 
part  of  Darke  and  Montgomery  Counties,  and  nearly 
all  of  Preble.  In  his  first  year  he  took  rank  as  a  vig- 
orous thinker  and  an  eloquent  man.  He  possessed 
rare  dramatic  genius.  Richard  Brandriff,  of  Piqua, 
a  member  of  the  Cincinnati  Conference,  joined  the 
traveling  connection  in  1821.  He  died  in  1887,  aged 
eighty-five  years.  He  was  a  contemporary  of  Mr. 
Durbin.  He  knew  him  intimately.  Mr.  Brandriff  has 
narrated  to  the  writer  repeated  instances  of  Mr.  Dur- 
bin's  early  development  as  a  man  of  recognized  pul- 
pit power.  In  the  Eastern  States  he  gave  a  lecture 
on  St  Paul  as  man,  irrespective  of  his  greatness  as  an 


CENTENNIAL   SERMON,    1888.  401 

inspired  apostle,  which  the  press  of  the  time  highly 
commended.  His  national  fame  as  an  orator  contin- 
ued for  many  years.  A  member  of  Wesley  Chapel  is 
still  living  who  sat  under  Mr.  Durbin's  ministry  in  the 
old  stone  church.  He  always  had  large  and  admiring 
audiences.  The  membership  in  the  city  in  1825  was 
seven  hundred  and  fifty ;  colored,  thirty-five.  Dr. 
Durbin's  career  affords  a  fine  illustration  of  the  op- 
portunity this  country  afforded  and  affords  earnest 
and  gifted  young  men  for  reaching  eminent  positions. 
L.  L.  Hamline,  afterward  a  bishop,  was  a  minister  in 
Wesley  in  1835  and  1836.  He  has  probably  never 
been  excelled  in  Ohio  as  a  brilliant,  clear,  forcible 
thinker  and  an  eloquent  divine.  Some  of  his  passages, 
as  now  recalled,  had  surpassing  sweep  of  thought  and 
diction,  and  overwhelming  pathos.  James  Quinn, 
John  Collins,  and  W.  B.  Christie  were  men  of  wide 
fame  and  usefulness.  Of  the  three,  Christie  excelled 
in  invariable  pulpit  effectiveness.  Even  when  he  was 
far  gone  in  consumption,  he  would  astonish  and  over- 
power his  audiences  by  vehement  and  eloquent  pas- 
sages. John  Miley,  of  a  period  of  ten  years  later,  has 
always  been  a  superior  preacher.  He  still  retains  the 
mental  fire  and  power  of  the  earlier  times.  He  is  the 
live  and  popular  professor  in  Drew.  It  was  while 
Bishop  Foster  was  pastor  of  Wesley  that  he  had  the 
controversy  with  Dr.  Rice,  on  Calvinism.  During  his 
incumbency  the  cholera  made  its  second  appearance 
in  Cincinnati.  He  was  with  the  sick  and  the  dying, 
never  flinching  nor  shirking  his  duty  to  the  stricken 
members  and  families  of  his  flock.  In  one  instance, 
a  lady  member  of  the  Church,  living  on  Sycamore 
Street,  called  at  the  parsonage  to  solicit  Mr.  Foster 
to  visit  her  husband,  who  was  very  ill  with  the 
cholera.  He  went,  found  the  man  in  collapse,  min- 
istered to  him,  and  remained  with  him  until  he  died, 
26 


402      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

smoothed  his  pillow,  and  laid  him  out  decently  upon 
the  bed.  Returning,  he  found  the  man's  wife  dying 
of  cholera.  The  man,  before  dying,  called  for  his  bank 
book,  found  a  balance  of  one  thousand  five  hundred 
dollars,  for  which  he  gave  Mr.  Foster  a  check  as  a 
personal  gift,  which,  however,  Mr.  Foster,  with  the 
self-sacrifice  and  generosity  characteristic  of  the  early 
itinerants,  gave  to  Wesley,  to  assist  in  paying  off  a 
troublesome  Church  debt. 

During  this  pastorate  Mr.  Foster  had  his  famous 
controversy  with  Dr.  Rice  on  Calvinism.  Lyman 
Beecher,  then  a  professor  in  Lane  Seminary,  came  to 
hear  his  sermons  on  Calvinism,  and  rendered  him  val- 
uable assistance  by  the  loan  of  books  of  reference 
upon  the  subject  under  discussion.  More  than  twenty 
years  later,  Bishop  Foster  met,  in  South  America,  a 
thrifty  Scotchman,  who  had  been  rescued  from  infidel- 
ity, caused  by  his  difficulties  with  Calvinism,  by  read- 
ing the  bishop's  book,  entitled,  "Objections  to  Cal- 
vinism." 

John  Collins  had  much  to  do  in  molding  and 
directing  Cincinnati  Methodism.  As  already  seen,  he 
visited  Cincinnati  in  1804,  and  preached  to  twelve 
persons.  In  1807  he  joined  the  traveling  connection, 
and,  with  Benjamin  Lakin  as  his  senior  colleague,  he 
was  stationed  on  Miami  Circuit,  which  then  included 
Cincinnati.  He  was  then  thirty-eight  years  of  age. 
In  182 1  and  1822,  at  the  age  of  fifty-two,  he  was  sta- 
tioned in  Wesley  Chapel,  Cincinnati.  Again,  in  1834, 
he  was  pastor  of  this  Church.  There  is  a  lady — Mrs. 
Kierman — still  a  member  of  Wesley,  which  she  joined 
under  Mr.  Collins's  pastorate.  He  was  evidently,  and 
with  good  reason,  a  great  favorite  with  the  people  of 
Wesley. 

John  Collins  was  presiding  elder  here  from  1826  to 
1829.     He  was  small  of  stature,  compactly  built,  with 


CENTENNIAL   SERMON,   1 888.  4°3 

an  expressive,  mild  blue  eye,  and  possessing  large  sen- 
sibility. He  seldom  preached  without  weeping,  in 
which  his  audiences  almost  always  participated.  He 
was  the  honored  instrument  in  the  conversion  of  Jus- 
tice John  McLean,  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court.  Mr.  Collins's  death  was  as  peaceful  and  tri- 
umphant as  his  long  life  had  been  useful  and  beauti- 
ful. His  sun-setting  was  without  a  cloud.  His  last 
words  were,  "Happy!  Happy!!  Happy!!!"  and  all 
was  still.  His  history  is  identified  with  that  of  the 
West.  '  His  usefulness  as  a  preacher  is  unsurpassed 
in  Southwestern  Ohio.  As  a  successful  pastor  he  had 
no  superior.* 

At  the  age  of  twenty,  William  H.  Raper  was  a 
captain  in  the  War  of  1812,  in  which  he  distinguished 
himself  as  a  brave  and  successful  soldier.  In  1816 
he  joined  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  In  t8to, 
he  became  a  member  of  the  Ohio  Conference.  In 
1825-1826  he  was  stationed  in  Cincinnati,  which  then 
included  Wesley  and  all  the  city.     In  1837  and  1838 


*  Maxwell  P.  Gaddis,  in  his  "Footprints  of  an  Itinerant, 
credits  John  Collins  with  having  preached  the  first  Methodist 
sermon  in  Ripley,  Ohio.  He  was  passing  through  Ripley, 
on  his  way  to  an  appointment,  and  passed  a  funeral  proces- 
sion on  its  way  to  the  grave  with  the  deceased  wife  of  an 
infidel.  After  the  burial  services  at  the  grave  were  concluded, 
he  requested  the  people  to  remain,  and  he  preached  to  them 
a  sermon  from  the  words,  "I  am  the  resurrection  and  the 
life."  (John  xi,  25.)  Many  were  in  tears.  The  infidel  was 
converted.  Mr.  Collins,  in  181 1,  appointed  the  trustees  and 
made  arrangements  for  building  the  first  Methodist  Episcopal 
church  in  Urbana,  Ohio.  In  the  same  year,  John  Collins, 
then  preaching  on  the  Mad  River  Circuit,  raised  a  subscrip- 
tion to  build  the  first  Methodist  Episcopal  church  in  Day- 
ton, Ohio.  Tn  1840,  in  the  great  revivals  under  J.  N.  Mafntt, 
in  which  seven  hundred  were  converted  in  Wesley,  and  many 
hundreds  in  Maysville,  Ky.,  Father  Collins  is  described^ 
working  effectively  in  a  blaze  of  glory. 


404      SIXTY-ONE   YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   IVORA'. 

he  was  stationed  in  Wesley.  In  1841  he  was  a  presid- 
ing elder  in  Cincinnati.  He  died  in  1852,  at  the  age 
of  sixty-one.  He  was  remarkable  for  his  refinement, 
his  rare  conversational  powers,  and  his  great  ability 
as  a  preacher  of  the  gospel.  Noble,  honored  man! 
After  thirty-two  years  since  his  death,  his  personal 
impress  is  still  felt. 

William  B.  Christie  was  born  in  1803.  He  was  a 
proficient  student  in  Augusta  College,  giving  promise 
then  of  his  distinguished  career.  In  1830  to  1832 
Mr.  Christie  was  pastor  in  Wesley  Chapel.  In  1836 
he  was  associated  with  L.  L.  Hamline  as  pastor  of 
Wesley.  In  1837-8-9  he  was  presiding  elder  in  Cin- 
cinnati. In  1841-1842  he  was  stationed  in  Urbana. 
In  1842,  he  died  in  this  city,  at  the  house  of  his 
brother-in-law,  Dr.  M.  B.  Wright.  When  dying,  he 
said  to  E.  W.  Sehon :  "Tell  the  brethren  of  the  Con- 
ference that  I  have  not  preached  an  unknown  nor  an 
unfelt  Christ.  The  gospel  I  have  preached  to  others 
sustains  me  now.  Tell  the  brethren  to  preach  Christ 
and  him  crucified ;  tell  them  my  only  hope,  my  only 
foundation,  is  in  the  blood  of  sprinkling.  O,  the  full- 
ness, the  richness,  the  sweetness  of  that  fountain!  I 
am  almost  home.  God  is  good  to  me.  Jesus  Christ 
is  my  salvation."  His  funeral,  from  this  church,  was 
attended  by  an  overflowing  crowd  of  all  classes  of 
people.  Persons  attended  who  were  never  before  nor 
since  within  these  walls.  Bishop  Morris  preached  on 
that  occasion.  He  says,  while  he  had  seen  many  happy 
Christians  die,  he  never  saw  a  more  signal  victory  than 
that  of  William  B.  Christie  in  his  death. 

Bishop  Morris  was  several  times  a  pastor  of  Wes- 
ley.    In  1832  and  1833  he  was  pastor  of  Wesley,  and 
from  1834  to  1836  he  was  presiding  elder  in  Cincin- 
nati. 
*  Having  spoken  of  some  of  the  distinguished  min- 


CENTENNIAL   SERMON,    1 88 8.  405 

isters  of  Wesley,  it  will  be  proper  to  make  reference 
also,  to  some  of  the  eminent  laymen  who  have  been 
honored  members  of  this  Church. 

Josiah  Lawrence,  a  native  of  Boston,  was  born 
April  19,  1791.  Early  in  the  century  he  came  to  Cin- 
cinnati, by  way  of  South  Carolina.  For  very  many 
years  he  was  an  active,  useful  member  of  the  Official 
Board  of  this  Church.  He  possessed  large  wealth, 
which  he  liberally  used  in  sustaining  the  Church  and 
in  its  benevolent  causes.  His  life  was  pure ;  his  ex- 
ample was  godly;  his  business  integrity  was  prover- 
bial. He  was  a  merchant  and  banker  in  whom  every- 
body had  confidence.  His  portrait  adorns  the  walls 
of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce.  One  of  the  oldest 
members  of  Wesley  said  to  me:  "Josian  Lawrence 
was  a  pillar  in  this  Church,  active,  devoted,  liberal, 
loved  by  all  the  Church." 

William  Neff  was  for  many  years  an  official  mem- 
ber of  Wesley.  He  was  reared  in  the  Episcopal 
Church.  But  he  formed  a  strong  attachment  for  J.  B. 
Finley,  under  whose  influence  he  was  converted,  and 
he  became  a  zealous  and  devoted  Methodist.  From 
his  birthplace,  in  Philadelphia,  he  came  west  by  the 
way  of  Savannah,  Georgia,  where  he  spent  the  earlier 
years  of  his  life.  Like  Lawrence,  Neff  was  wealthy 
and  liberal. 

Another  eminent  member  of  this  Church  was 
a  man  whose  early  and  thrilling  history  I  read  in 
my  childhood  in  a  Sunday-school  library  book. 
Oliver  M.  Spencer,  in  1790,  when  a  young  lad,  was 
brought,  by  his  parents,  from  New  Jersey  to  Cin- 
cinnati. At  first  they  settled  in  Columbia,  where 
several  years  were  spent.  By  permission,  he  came 
down  to  Fort  Washington,  with  his  parents,  on  foot, 
to  attend  a  military  drill  and  parade,  which  was 
to  continue  several  days.     After  the  first  day  Oliver 


406      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

tired  of  the  parade,  and,  with  the  consent  of  his 
parents,  he  started  back,  on  foot,  and  alone,  for  Co- 
lumbia. On  his  homeward  way  he  saw  a  boat  with 
persons  in  it,  ascending  the  river.  He  signaled  the 
boat,  hoping  to  obtain  a  ride  to  Columbia.  Some 
concealed  Indians  captured  him,  and  carried  him  to 
their  own  home,  in  the  Wabash  or  Michigan  region. 
He  had  all  the  experience  of  Indian  life,  sleeping  at 
night  on  the  ground,  and  faring  in  their  rough,  irreg- 
ular way.  He  was  taken  by  them  to  Pennsylvania, 
Indiana,  Michigan,  and  New  York.  Through  the 
offices  of  a  friendly  Indian,  he  was  reclaimed  while 
yet  a  captive  in  New  York.  After  his  rescue  he  re- 
mained a  few  years  in  New  York,  attending  school, 
and  then  returned  to  Cincinnati.  Spencer  was  a  lead- 
ing member  of  this  Church,  at  times  president  and 
secretary  of  the  trustees.  He  took  an  active  and 
leading  part  in  the  erection  of  Wesley  Chapel. 

Mrs.  Bell,  one  of  the  oldest  members  of  Wesley, 
bears  testimony  to  the  excellent  character  and  piety 
of  Christopher  Smith,  whom  she  described  as  the  salt 
of  the  earth.  One  of  his  daughters,  Mrs.  Edward 
Sargent,  died  a  year  or  two  since.  Another  daughter 
still  lives  on  Walnut  Hills.  Brother  Truesdell,  a 
teacher,  was  Sister  Bell's  class-leader.  He  was  faith- 
ful and  effective.  His  widow  became  the  wife  of 
Bishop  Hamline.  She  died  a  few  years  since  in 
Evanston.  She  was  a  noble  Christian  woman,  of 
cultured  mind  and  highly-refined  nature. 

Judge  McLean,  the  distinguished  jurist,  was  a 
steady-going,  earnest,  consistent,  and  faithful  Meth- 
odist. He  was  always  found  in  his  place,  right  here 
on  the  right-hand  side  of  the  pulpit,  on  the  front  seat 
of  the  amen  corner,  just  there  next  to  that  gallery 
post.  His  piety  was  genuine;  here  he  sat;  here  he 
testified,  by  his  life  and  his  words,  for  Jesus.     He 


CENTENNIAL  SERMON,   1888.  407 

was  a  class-leader.  J.  P.  Kilbreth,  who  came  to  this 
city  wfien  the  century  was  young,  frequently  attended 
his  sunrise  class  in  the  little,  one-story,  one-room 
frame  building,  called  the  church  office,  and  which 
stood  on  the  church-lot  near  where  the  parsonage  now 
stands.  Judge  McLean  wrote  very  beautiful  sketches 
of  the  lives  of  John  Collins  and  Philip  Gatch,  pioneer 
preachers  of  Southwestern  Ohio. 

But  we  may  not  overlook  the  women  of  Cincinnati 
Methodism.  In  this  city,  fifty  years  ago,  from  woman's 
wise  forethought,  came  the  Cincinnati  Wesleyan  Col- 
lege, which  has  been  graduating  trained,  godly  women 
for  all  the  middle  West.  They  have  filled  the  land  with 
their  blessed  influence.  Here,  too,  more  recently, 
was  launched  the  Woman's  Home  Missionary  Society 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  The  Cincinnati 
Branch,  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society,  has 
been  behind  none  in  liberal,  effective  doing  for 
Christ.  Under  the  ministry  of  some  of  the  ablest 
men  of  American  Methodism,  came  into  our  Cincin- 
nati Methodism  some  of  its  grandest  women:  Mrs. 
Judge  McLean,  Mrs.  Josiah  Lawrence,  Mrs.  Benjamin 
Stewart,  Mrs.  Christopher  Smith,  Mrs.  Logue,  Mrs. 
Ezekiel  Thorp,  Mrs.  Arnold  Truesdell,  afterward  Mrs. 
Bishop  Hamline,  Mrs.  Collins,  Mrs.  Jemima  Peacock, 
Mrs.  Sarah  Mills,  Mrs  J.  P.  Kilbreth,  Mrs.  T.  W. 
Bakewell,  Mrs.  Sacker  Nelson,  Mrs.  William  Neff, 
Mrs.  Oliver  M.  Spencer,  Mrs.  Mary  Coner,  mother 
of  our  own  Aunt  Jane  Banks.  Mrs.  John  Elstner,  one 
of  God's  own,  the  Lord's  prisoner,  still  remains.  In 
her  prime  she  was  an  active  manager  of  the  Home  for 
the  Friendless.  In  her  age  and  feebleness  she  does 
not  lack  for  friends.  Nearly  all  of  these  were  members 
of  Wesley;  some  belonged  to  the  old  stone  church. 

In  the  old  brick  church,  Plum  and  Fourth  Street, 
next  after  the  old  stone  church,  there  grew  up,  prior  to 


408      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF   ITINERANT   WORK. 

the  last  half  century,  a  class  of  noble  Methodist 
women,  among  whom  may  be  named  Mrs.  Dr.  Jesse 
Smith,  afterward  wife  of  Rev.  John  F.  Wright,  and 
of  equally  blessed  memory.  Mrs.  William  McLean, 
Mrs.  John  Reeves,  Airs.  Thomas  B.  Anderson,  Mrs. 
Moses  Brooks,  Mrs.  John  Dubois,  and  her  sister,  Miss 
Susan  Lanphear.  Most  of  these  women  had  homes  of 
plenty  and  luxury,  which  were  always  open  to  the 
ministers  of  Christ.  The  few  surviving  Methodists 
of  those  early  times  recall  the  domestic  delights  of 
those  well-nigh  apostolic  days  as  a  pleasant  dream. 

Nine  years  ago,  at  the  ripe  age  of  eighty-three,  Ann 
Davis,  mother  of  the  two  doctors,  John  and  William 
B.  Davis,  went  home,  after  seventy-two  years  of  Chris- 
tian life.  For  fifty  years  she  had  been  honorably  con- 
nected with  Cincinnati  Methodism.  Fifty  years  ago 
she  effectively  aided  Dr.  Nast  in  planting  German 
Methodism  in  this  city.  In  this  roll  of  honor  belong 
Mrs.  Samuel  Lewis,  Mrs.  Gamble,  Sr.,  mother  of 
James  Gamble,  who  is  still  with  us ;  also  Mr.  Gamble's 
sisters,  Media  Gamble  and  Airs.  Rizer.  Mrs.  Gamble 
had  seen  Wesley  and  heard  Coke.  Of  those  yet  re- 
maining, Mrs.  Bishop  Clark  and  Mrs.  Glenn,  of  St. 
Paul ;  Mrs.  Stewart  and  Airs.  Perkins ;  Airs.  Wood,  of 
Walnut  Hills;  and  Airs.  Gamble,  of  Trinity,  and  so 
many  more,  loved  and  cherished,  I  could  say  much. 

I  wish  to  give  you  some  figures  showing  the  ac- 
tual and  relative  progress  of  Methodism  in  Cincin- 
nati. It  has  been  slower  and  smaller  than  in  the 
whole  State,  and  as  compared  also  with  Alethodism 
in  other  cities.  Yet  it  has  had  peculiar  hindrances 
here  not  known  in  other  cities  and  sections.  Con- 
sidering these,  its  march  has  not  been  discreditable. 

The  population  given  for  i860  is  an  approximate 
figure.  The  Methodist  figures  for  1880  and  1888  are 
approximate,  yet  they  are  substantially  reliable.    They 


CENTENNIAL   SERMON,   1888.  409 

include  the  German  and  colored  members,  and  also 
members  in  suburban  charges. 

ACTUAL  AND  COMPARATIVE  INCREASE  OF  MEMBERS 
BY  DECADES. 

1800-1810. — Members,  say  130;  increase,  130  per  cent. 

Methodists  to  the  population,  one  in  nineteen. 
1810-1820. — Members,   608;    increase,   375   per   cent. 

Methodists  to  the  population,  one  in  sixteen. 
1820-1830. — Members,    1,142;   increase,  87  per  cent. 

Proportion,  one  in  twenty-two. 
1830-1840. — Members,  2,686;  increase,  138  per  cent. 

Proportion,  one  in  sixteen. 
1840-1850. — Members,   3,223;   increase,  20  per  cent. 

Proportion,  one  in  thirty-five. 
1 850- 1 860. — Members*,  4,461  ;   increase,   39  per   cent. 

Proportion,  one  in  thirty-seven. 
1860-1870. — Members,  4,932;  increase,  ioj^  per  cent. 

One  Methodist  to  forty-four  of  the  population. 
1870-1880. — Members,   7,000;   increase,  42   per  cent. 

One  Methodist  to  thirty-six. 
1880-1888. — Members,  say  8,000;   increase,  14/2  pr.  ct. 

One  Methodist  to  forty-two  of  the  population. 

POPULATION— ACTUAL  AND  RELATIVE  INCREASE  BY 

DECADES. 

Increase 
Decade.  Numbers.  Per  Cent. 

1800-1810  2,510 230 

1810-1820  9,242 280 

1820-1830  24,831 58 

1830-1840  44,338 79 

1840-1850  115,403 165* 

1850-1860  167,378 45 

1860-1870  216,139 35 

1870-1880  255,139 18 

1880-1888  say 333,ooo 3 


*  Notwithstanding  4,832,  one  in  twenty-four,  or  four   per 
cent  of  the  population,  died  of  cholera. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

1WAS  sent  from  Wesley  Chapel,  Cincinnati,  to 
Central  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  Spring- 
field, Ohio,  at  the  Conference  of  1888.  I  had  been 
in  Wesley  only  three-fifths  of  the  possible  length 
of  the  pastorate.  It  was  the  judgment  of  all  the 
members  of  the  Official  Board  of  Wesley  that  I 
should  fill  out  the  full  term,  and  in  this  view  of  the 
case  I  was  in  full  accord  with  them.  Yet  Central 
Church  was  deemed  to  be  in  a  peculiar  condition. 
It  was  the  opinion  of  Bishop  Warren  and  all  the 
presiding  elders  of  the  Conference  that  I  should 
be  sent  to  Central  Church,  Springfield.  I  went 
there,  and  while  the  conditions  were  somewhat 
unique,  I  was  never  the  pastor  of  any  Church  where 
I  had  more  fully  the  confidence  of  my  officiary  and 
the  appreciation  of  my  congregation.  All  things 
considered,  they  were  very  successful  years.  We 
had  almost  a  continuous  revival.  This  is  a  work- 
ing Church — a  people's  Church.  During  my  two 
years'  pastorate  in  the  Central  Church,  I  wrote  and 
published  a  paper  in  reply  to  Colonel  Robert  G. 
Ingersoll's  article  on  "God  in  the  Constitution." 
His  article  appeared  in  the  first  number  of  the 
Arena,  a  Boston  review.  I  wrote  a  reply,  and  sent 
it  to  the  editor,  who  had  promised  me  that  my 
paper  should  appear  in  the  next  number  of  the 
Arena;  but  when  I  sent  it  the  editor  returned  it, 
saying  that  a  Roman  Catholic  bishop  and  a  Con- 

410 


THOMAS  H.  PEARNE,  D.  D. 

(At  the  age  of  78  years,) 


REVIEW   OF  INGERSOEL.  411 

gressman  had  sent  him  replies,  which  he  deemed  it 
better  to  publish  than  to  print  my  article.  I  then 
published  and  circulated  my  own  reply.  It  was 
printed  in  pamphlet  form  in  Cincinnati  in  1890. 
I  here  insert  it  as  still  opportune : 

GOD  IN  THE  CONSTITUTION. 

"A  REVIEW." 

Colonel  Robert  G.  Ingersoll  has  published,  in  the 
Arena  for  January,  a  paper  on  "God  in  the  Constitu- 
tion." It  holds  the  place  of  honor,  being  the  first 
article.  While  ostensibly  opposing  the  insertion  of 
God's  name  in  that  instrument,  he  speaks  one  word 
for  his  avowed  theme,  and  three  or  four  for  the  old 
hobby  he  has  been  riding  for  the  last  fifteen  years; 
namely,  venomous,  unscrupulous  attacks  upon  God, 
the  Bible,  and  the  Christian  religion. 

The  Colonel's  article  is  characteristic.  It  is  a  sin- 
gular mosaic  of  venom  and  fun,  argument  and  decla- 
mation, hyperbole  and  reasonable  statement,  satire 
and  sober  truth.  Bald  assumptions  and  malignant  in- 
vective are  indiscriminately  commingled. 

The  stale  chestnuts  of  Thomas  Paine,  who  issued 
a  hundred  years  ago  a  ribald  book,  falsely  named 
"The  Age  of  Reason;"  the  unworthy  denunciations 
of  the  Bible  and  religion  by  Thomas  Hertell,  a  mem- 
ber of  Congress,  some  fifty  years  since;  and  the 
rhetoric,  wit,  sarcasm,  and  exaggeration  of  the  Col- 
onel himself,  are  freely  and  loosely  thrown  about  in 
promiscuous,  bewildering  profusion. 

He  reminds  one  of  the  acrobat  in  the  circus  ring, 
ealled  Dandy  Jack,  who,  after  feats  of  ground  and 
lofty  tumbling,  pulls  off  his  red  cap,  and  waits  for  the 
applause. 


412      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

The  Colonel's  production  is  a  rare  specimen  of 
intellectual  vaulting  and  leaping,  causing  the  gaping 
crowd  to  stare  and  applaud,  we  may  imagine,  much 
after  the  manner  of  those  of  the  olden  time,  who  won- 
dered at  the  marvelous  exploits  of  the  village  school- 
master of  the  poet, — 

"And  still  they  gazed,  and  still  the  wonder  grew, 
How  one  small  head  could  carry  all  he  knew." 

With  the  dogmatism  of  a  pope,  the  Colonel  asserts, 
as  though  he  believed  his  absurd  proposition : 

As  to  the  existence  of  the  Supernatural,  one  man  knows 
precisely  as  much,  and  exactly  as  little,  as  another.  Upon  this 
question,  chimpanzees  and  cardinals,  apes  and  popes,  are 
upon  an  exact  equality. 

The  Colonel  puts  the  jabbering  monkeys  and  the 
priests  into  the  same  category.  Such  assumptions  dis- 
close astounding  arrogance.  In  some  of  the  para- 
graphs there  are  more  assumptions  than  lines.  They 
are  used  as  though  he  considered  his  assertions  argu- 
ments, and  as  though  the  more  extreme  and  bald  the 
assertion,  the  more  utter  the  discomfiture  of  his  op- 
ponent, and  the  more  certain  and  triumphant  the 
maintenance  of  his  own  propositions.  Many  of  his  as- 
sumptions have  no  apparent  probability,  yet  he  repeats 
them  as  though  he  believed  them  axiomatic.    Consider 

I.  Examples  of  Colonel  Ingersoll's  Bold 
Assumptions. — This  is  one  of  the  opening  para- 
graphs : 

In  1776  our  fathers  endeavored  to  retire  the  gods  from 
politics.  They  declared  that  "all  governments  derive  their 
just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed."  This  was  a 
contradiction  of  the  then  political  ideas  of  the  world;  it  was, 
as  many  believed,  an  act  of  pure  blasphemy — a  renunciation 
of  the  Deity.     It  was,  in  fact,  a  declaration  of  the  independ- 


REVIEW  OE  INGERSOLL.  413 

ence  of  the  earth.  It  was  a  notice  to  all  Churches  and  priests 
that  thereafter  mankind  would  govern  and  protect  themselves. 
Politically,  it  tore  down  every  altar,  and  denied  the  authority 
of  every  "Sacred  Book,"  and  appealed  from  the  providence 
of  God  to  the  providence  of  man. 

In  ten  lines  here  are  a  dozen  assertions,  each  one 
of  which  is  unfounded,  some  of  which  are  untrue,  and 
all  of  them  misleading. 

So  far  as  known,  the  fathers  of  1776  did  not  "en- 
deavor to  retire  the  gods  from  politics."  Nay!  If 
the  author  did  not  "know  enough  to  know  this,"  he 
is  more  obtuse  than  he  has  generally  been  considered. 
Unless  grossly  ignorant,  he  knew  that  the  signers  of 
the  Declaration  were  not  idolaters — were  not  believers 
in  gods  many.  They  were  not  pagans.  Three  of 
them,  at  least,  were  ministers,  and  perhaps  others. 
Yet  he  sets  up  a  row  of  imaginary  gods,  and  then  em- 
ployed "our  fathers"  in  1776,  in  knocking  them  down 
and  out  by  a  decree,  a  declaration  shall  we  say,  a 
constitution?     He  implies  a  constitution. 

Their  utterance  as  to  the  derivation  of  the  powers 
of  government  was  not  intended  (so  far  as  can  be 
seen)  to  strike  out  one  god,  not  many.  The  signers 
believed  in  God,  the  Creator,  in  his  providence,  and 
in  his  justice  and  omniscience  as  well;  for  they  appeal 
to  the  Supreme  Judge  of  the  world  for  the  rectitude 
of  their  intentions.  In  the  first  sentence  of  that  im- 
mortal document,  they  speak  of  "Nature's  God"  and 
"Man's  Creator."  In  the  very  last  sentence  they  say, 
"For  the  support  of  this  Declaration,  with  a  firm  re- 
liance in  the  protection  of  Divine  Providence,  we 
mutually  pledge  to  each  other  our  lives,  our  fortunes, 
and  our  sacred  honor." 

In  view  of  these  facts,  what  are  we  to  think  of  the 
candor  and  veracity  of  Colonel  Ingersoll? 

When  he  used  the  statement  that  our  fathers  of 


414      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

1776  "appealed  from  the  providence  of  God  to  the 
providence  of  man,"  he  uttered  what  he  must  have 
known  was  false. 

Equally  improbable,  unsupported,  and  untrue,  are 
other  statements  in  the  same  paragraph.     Let  us  see : 

This  was,  as  many  believed,  an  act  of  pure  blasphemy,  a 
renunciation  of  the  Deity. 

Necessarily,  this  act,  and  the  believing  concerning 
it,  were  contemporaneous.  The  act  is  patent,  as  we 
have  seen.  It  was  neither  blasphemy  nor  a  renun- 
ciation of  the  Deity;  because,  in  the  Declaration,  four 
times  they  recognized  and  named  God.  If  many  so 
believed,  they  must  have  had  some  basis  for  their  be- 
lief outside  the  Declaration,  and  they  must  have  felt 
some  statements  of  their  thus  believing,  or  the  Col- 
onel could  not  have  known  that  they  so  believed. 
What  are  those  statements,  and  where  can  they  be 
found?  Come  forward,  Sir  Champion,  and  produce 
them,  or  stand  impeached  of  attempting  to  palm  off, 
upon  an  intelligent  public,  an  unproved  and  improb- 
able assertion. 

"Optics  keen  it  takes,  I  ween, 
To  see  what  is  not  to  be  seen." 

Examine  another  remark : 

It  was,  in  fact,  a  declaration  of  the  independence  of  the 
earth. 

It  was  not  so  in  fact.  It  was  not  so,  even  in  form. 
The  signers  declared  for  themselves  and  their  con- 
stituents, and  for  no  others,  their  renunciation  and 
independence  of  Great  Britain.  At  the  same  time  they 
recognized  their  dependence  upon  their  Creator.  It 
was  a  great  document.  It  declared  basal  principles ; 
but  it  was  not  a  declaration  of  the  independence  of 


REVIEW  OF  INGERSOLL.  415 

the  whole  earth.  Our  fathers  of  1776  declared  that 
"all  men  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain 
inalienable  rights."  This  proved  their  faith  in  God 
and  their  reverence  for  his  authority. 

Equally  unwarranted  and  untrue  is  the  statement 
that  the  Declaration  "was  a  notice  to  all  Churches  and 
priests  that  thereafter  mankind  would  govern  and  pro- 
tect themselves."  There  is  no  reference  here,  ex- 
pressed or  implied,  to  Churches  and  priests.  Nor  is 
there  anything  in  the  contemporaneous  history  of  the 
Declaration,  or  of  the  times,  to  support  the  gratuitous 
assertions. 

"Politically,"  says  the  Colonel,  "it  tore  down  every 
altar,  and  denied  the  authority  of  every  sacred  book, 
and  appealed  from  the  providence  of  God  to  the 
providence  of  man." 

All  and  singular  these  averments  are  proved  false 
by  the  witness  the  Colonel  himself  has  introduced  and 
placed  upon  the  stand.  He  may  not,  in  any  form  or 
to  any  degree,  discredit  his  own  witness.  He  is  bound 
to  abide  by  what  his  own  witness,  fairly  construed, 
says.  He  can  not  escape  this  conclusion  by  saying 
that  he  is  talking  about  the  Constitution  and  not 
about  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  He  desig- 
nates the  latter  by  the  date  of  its  birth,  1776.  He 
quotes  from  it  words  found  in  the  Declaration  but  not 
in  the  Constitution.  The  Constitution  was  not  framed 
until  thirteen  years  later.  By  his  own  witness,  there- 
fore, Mr.  Ingersoll  is  convicted  of  dense  ignorance 
or  of  gross  fraud  and  falsehood. 

And  is  such  a  man,  hurling  malignant  invectives 
against  God  and  his  religion  and  ministers,  to  go  un- 
challenged ? 

Is  he  to  be  virtually  accredited,  by  the  silent  ac- 
quiescence and  non-protest  of  Christian  people,  in  his 
ruthless,  fraudulent  assaults  upon  the  religion  of  the 


41 6      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

great  mass  of  the  American  people?  Finding  these 
glaring  perversions  and  untruths  in  one  of  the  first 
paragraphs  of  the  Colonel's  paper,  it  would  be  fair  to 
conclude  that  the  remainder  is  also  untrue  and  mis- 
leading. We  might,  therefore,  forego  further  exam- 
ination, since  it  is  a  safe  general  conclusion  that  what 
is  false  in  one  part  is  false,  also,  in  all.  And  yet  it 
may  be  best  to  pursue  our  inquiries  further.  Let  us 
consider,  then,  that 

II.  In  the  Colonel's  paper  there  are  nu- 
merous EXAMPLES  OP  BITTER  PREJUDICE,  WHICH 
RENDER  HIS  CONCLUSIONS  SUSPICIOUS,  UNRELIA- 
BLE, and  misleading. — The  following  specimen  is 
pertinent . 

And  if  there  is  to  be  an  acknowledgment  of  God  in  the  Con- 
stitution, the  question  naturally  arises  as  to  which  God  is  to 
have  this  honor.  Shall  we  select  the  God  of  the  Catholics — he 
who  has  established  an  infallible  Church  presided  over  by  an 
infallible  pope,  and  who  is  delighted  with  certain  ceremonies 
and  placated  by  prayers  uttered  in  exceedingly  common 
Latin?  Is  it  the  God  of  the  Presbyterian,  with  the  Five  Points 
of  Calvinism,  who  is  ingenious  enough  to  harmonize  necessity 
and  responsibility,  and  who  in  some  way  justifies  himself  for 
damning  most  of  his  own  children?  Is  it  the  God  of  the 
Puritan,  the  enemy  of  joy — of  the  Baptist,  who  is  great  enough 
to  govern  the  universe,  and  small  enough  to  allow  the  destiny 
of  a  soul  to  depend  on  whether  the  body  it  inhabited  was 
immersed  or  sprinkled? 

What  God  is  it  proposed  to  put  in  the  Constitution?  Is  it 
the  God  of  the  Old  Testament,  who  is  a  believer  in  slavery, 
and  who  justified  polygamy  f  If  slavery  was  right  then,  it  is 
right  now;  and  if  Jehovah  was  right  then,  the  Mormons  are 
right  now.  Are  we  to  have  the  God  ivho  issued  a  command- 
ment against  all  art — who  zvas  the  enemy  of  investigation  and  of 
free  speech f  Is  it  the  God  who  commanded  the  husband  to 
stone  his  wife  to  death  because  she  differed  with  him  on  the 
subject  of  religion  ?  Are  we  to  have  a  God  who  ivill  re-enact 
the  Mosaic  code,  and  punish  hundreds  of  offenses  with  death? 
What  court,  what  tribunal  of  last  resort,  is  to  define  this  God, 


REVIEW  OF  INGERSOLL.  417 

and  who  is  to  make  known  his  will?  In  his  presence,  laws 
passed  by  men  will  be  of  no  value.  The  decisions  of  courts  will 
be  as  nothing.  But  who  is  to  make  known  the  will  of  this 
supreme  God?  Will  there  be  a  supreme  tribunal  composed  of 
priests? 

No  intelligent  person  holds  that  the  God  of  the 
Romanist  is  a  different  being  from  the  God  of  the 
Protestants,  or  the  Calvinists,  the  Puritans,  the  Bap- 
tists, or  the  Jews.  The  Colonel  distorts  and  arrays 
the  extreme  views  of  each  to  discredit  them  all,  and 
to  make  it  appear  absurd  and  impracticable  that  the 
Constitution  should  recognize  God. 

The  assertion  that  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament 
was  a  believer  in  slavery  and  justified  polygamy,  is 
an  unsupported  and  misleading  one.  Plow  does  the 
Colonel  know  what  God  believed?  How  can  he  un- 
less God  has  told  him  ?  And  how  can  a  myth,  a  mere 
matter  of  opinion,  believe  or  communicate?  Where 
is  the  proof  that  God  believed  in  slavery  and  justified 
polygamy?  Because  he  permitted  them?  Then  God 
believed  in  sin,  in  murder,  and  idolatry,  and  adultery; 
for  God  permitted  them  to  exist.  That  God  believed 
in  neither  is  shown  beyond  cavil,  in  the  fact  that  the 
moral  law  cuts  up  slavery  and  polygamy  by  the  roots. 
"Doth  the  same  fountain  send  forth  both  bitter  water 
and  sweet?" 

The  attempt  to  show  that  if  God  were  recognized 
in  the  Constitution,  some  authoritative  tribunal  to  ex- 
plain and  interpret  God's  will  would  be  necessary,  is 
prejudiced  and   sophistical. 

The  inquiry,  "Will  there  be  a  supreme  tribunal 
composed  of  priests?"  discloses  the  old  bitter  hate 
against  ministers,  which,  in  the  Colonel,  seems  a  rul- 
ing passion.  The  criminal  codes  of  all  civilized  na- 
tions are  based  upon  the  moral  law  as  revealed  in  the 
Bible. 
27 


41 3      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

The  common  law  of  England,  and  which,  also,  is 
the  foundation  of  our  judicial  system,  expressly  recog- 
nizes Christianity  as  a  part  of  the  English  common 
law. 

There  is  not  a  civilized  nation  on  the  face  of  the 
earth  that  does  not  recognize  God  in  its  laws.  Black- 
stone,  section  2,  says:  "On  these  two  foundations,  the 
law  of  nature  and  the  law  of  revelation,  depend  all 
human  laws;  and  where  there  is  no  revelation,  then  the 
human  laws  depend  upon  the  laws  of  nature  and  on 
God  for  their  source." 

All  this  is  not  only  as  true  in  our  country  as  in 
others,  but  it  is  more  so.  Does  our  brother — who 
knows  thes-e  things  as  well  as  any  one — find  any  diffi- 
culty in  that  fact?  Are  priests  therefore  needed  to 
stand  at  the  elbows  of  courts  to  teach  them  what  is 
and  what  is  not  criminal? 

III.  Colonel  Ingersoll  betrays  a  suspicious 

ANIMUS  AGAINST  A  CERTAIN  CLASS  OF  HIS  FELLOW- 
CITIZENS. — He  says: 

Of  course  all  persons  elected  to  office  will  either  swear  or 
affirm  to  support  the  Constitution.  Men  who  do  not  believe 
in  this  God  can  not  so  swear  or  affirm.  Such  men  will  not 
be  allowed  to  hold  any  office  of  trust  or  honor.  A  God  in  the 
Constitution  will  not  interfere  with  the  oaths  or  affirmations  of 
hypocrites.  Such  a  provision  will  only  exclude  honest  and  con- 
scientious unbelievers.  Intelligent  people  know  that  no  one  knows 
whether  there  is  a  God  or  not.  The  existence  of  such  a  being  is 
merely  a  matter  of  opinion.  Men  who  believe  in  the  liberty  of 
man,  who  are  willing  to  die  for  the  honor  of  their  country,  will 
be  excluded  from  taking  any  part  in  the  administration  of  its 
affairs.  Such  a  provision  would  place  the  country  under  the  feet 
of  priests. 

To  recognize  a  Deity  in  the  organic  law  of  our  country 
would  be  the  destruction  of  religious  liberty.  The  God  in 
the  Constitution  would  have  to  be  protected.  There  would 
be  laws  against  blasphemy,  laws  against  the  publication  of 
honest   thoughts,    laws    against    carrying   books    and   papers 


REVIEW  OE  INGERSOLL.  419 

in  the  mails  in  which  this  Constitutional  God  should  be  at- 
tacked. Our  land  would  be  filled  with  theological  spies,  with 
religious  eavesdroppers,  and  all  the  snakes  and  reptiles  of 
the  lowest  natures,  in  this  sunshine  of  religious  authority, 
would  uncoil  and  crawl. 

In  this  remarkable  passage  several  things  are  ob- 
vious : 

(1)  We  see  the  usual,  sweeping  sneer  at  religion. 
In  this  instance  it  is  that  those  who  profess  it  are 
ignorant.  The  Colonel  says,  "Intelligent  people  know 
that  no  one  knows  whether  there  be  a  God  or  not." 
What  about-  Chancellor  Kent,  Isaac  Newton,  Her- 
schel,  Strong,  Marshall,  and  Chase?  Were  they  in- 
telligent ? 

(2)  We  see  here  a  denial  of  God's  existence.  "The 
existence  of  such  a  being  is  merely  a  matter  of  opin- 
ion." This  is  unmixed  atheism.  If  God's  existence 
is  only  a  matter  of  opinion,  then  there  is  no  God ;  then 
the  claim  that  there  is  a  God — nay,  the  existence  of 
God — is  only  a  myth.  A  mere  matter  of  opinion  about 
God  is  not  a  fact  as  to  God.  In  this  averment  Colonel 
Ingersoll  denies  the  consciousness  of  universal  Chris- 
tendom— hundreds  of  millions  of  people.  That  God 
exists,  that  he  fills  human  souls  with  his  light  and 
presence  and  power,  is  not  opinion  at  all,  but  fact — a 
fact  attested  by  millions  of  people,  who  have  lived  in 
past  ages,  and  by  millions  who  are  now  living. 

(3)  These  statements  contain,  also,  a  malignant 
snarl  against  priests  and  ministers.  But  this  is  as 
usual  as  the  Colonel's  restlessness  when  the  subject 
of  hell  is  named,  so  that  the  editor  of  the  Cincinnati 
Gazette  described  him  as  "the  man  afraid  of  hell."  I 
would  not  say  that  the  Colonel  is  afraid  of  priests, 
for  probably  he  is  not ;  but  if  any  one  should  swear 
that  the  Colonel  does  not  hate  ministers,  he  would 
be  quite  likely  to  perjure  himself.     His  hatred  of  them 


420      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

is  unconcealed,  unappeasable,  and  morbid.  It  survives 
all  accidents  and  changes.  It  is  irrepressibly,  offens- 
ively obtrusive.  On  all  occasions,  and  with  no  amiable 
smiles,  it  ambles  to  the  front,  and,  like  a  vicious  horse, 
is  snaps  its  teeth  at  all  within  its  reach.  These  out- 
bursts of  rage  and  hostility  abound  throughout  the 
entire  paper ;  and  how  unkind  !  how  untrue  !  Among 
the  signers  of  *the  Declaration  was  a  Presbyterian 
minister — president  of  Nassau  Hall,  Princeton,  after- 
wards Princeton  College.  Among  the  framers  of  the 
Constitution  was  an  eminent  Lutheran  minister,  and 
perhaps  other  ministers.  During  our  Revolutionary 
struggle,  in  repeated  instances,  ministers  preached 
and  fought.  The  loyalty  and  courage  of  ministers  in 
the  late  Rebellion  were  exemplary.  Ministers  are  or- 
derly citizens.  They  pay  taxes  quite  as  honestly  and 
as  cheerfully  as  any  other  citizens.  They  obey  the 
laws,  and  live  useful,  benevolent  lives.  Why  should 
the  Colonel  pursue  them  as  he  does?  Take  the  fol- 
lowing specimens :  "Will  there  be  a  supreme  tribunal 
of  priests?"  .  .  .  "What  of  the  priest,  the  cardi- 
nal, and  the  pope,  who  wrest  from  the  hand  of  pov- 
erty 'the  single  coin  thrice  earned?'"  .  .  .  "For 
many  years  priests  have  attempted  to  give  this  Gov- 
ernment a  religious  form."  .  .  .  "We  have  tried 
the  government  of  priests,  and  we  know  that  such 
governments  are  without  mercy."  .  .  .  "The 
priest  was  no  longer  a  necessity."  .  .  .  "There  is 
a  suspicion  that  the  priest,  the  theologian,  is  not  satis- 
fied with  this ;  he  wishes  to  destroy  the  liberties  of  the 
people." 

I  pause  to  inquire.  What  means  this  unappeasable, 
ferocious  malignity  against  priests  ?  What  is  the  mat- 
ter with  our  choleric,  atheistic  brother?  When  a  per- 
son dwells  exclusively,  continuously,  intensely,  upon 
one  line  of  thought,  the  fact  naturally  suggests  mental 


REVIEW  OF  INGERSOLL.  42 1 

unbalance,  want  of  mental  equilibrium ;  examination 
is  in  order.  Inquiry  as  to  sanity  or  otherwise  is  at 
once  deemed  the  fitting  thing. 

This  reiteration  to  weariness  against  ministers, 
these  suspicions  and  innuendoes  and  direct  attacks 
upon  them  as  a  class,  painfully  indicate  a  want  of  filial 
respect  and  duty.  They  ominously  denote  a  willful, 
unfilial  disregard  of  the  Fifth  Commandment,  "Honor 
thy  father  and  thy  mother."  "It  is  an  ill  bird  that 
fouls  its  own  nest."  For  be  it  remembered  that  the 
man  who  so  berates  ministers  is  himself  the  son  of  a 
priest.  Does  he  derive  his  unforgetting  dislike  of  min- 
isters from  his  early  associations  as  the  son  of  one  of 
them?  Was  he  relating  a  chapter  from  his  own  life 
when  he  wrote,  "We  have  tried  the  government  of 
priests,  and  we  know  they  are  without  mercy?"  Must 
we  then  conclude  that  he  was  indeed  so  bad  a  lad  that 
his  father's  rule  had  to  be  "without  mercy?"  or,  was 
the  father  such  a  monster  of  cruelty  that  the  best 
thing  the  son  could  say  of  him,  long  after  he  had 
passed  away  from  earth,  was  that  his  "rule  was  with- 
out mercy?"  In  either  case,  we  commend  to  our 
unhappy,  blatant  brother  the  Scripture  which  saith: 
"He  that  is  unfaithful  in  least,  is  unfaithful  also  in 
much."  A  son  who  goes  back  on  his  earthly  father, 
is  quite  likely  to  go  back  also  on  God. 

IV.  The  Colonel  abounds  in  unjust,  unfair 
reasoning. — This  is  a  specimen: 

To  recognize  a  Deity  in  the  organic  law  would  be  the 
destruction  of  religious  liberty. 

His  assertions  being  groundless,  his  fears  are  un- 
necessary. We  already  have  a  great  deal  of  Christian- 
ity in  our  civilization.  Of  our  citizens,  forty  millions 
are  believers  in  Christ's  religion.  Besides  these, 
twelve  or  fifteen  millions  are  children;  of  the  remain- 


422      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

ing  five  or  eight  millions,  probably  not  one  in  fifty  is 
of  Colonel  Ingersoll's  unbelief. 

The  informal,  incidental  pressure  of  Christianity 
upon  the  civil  life  of  the  country,  and  the  infusion  of 
its  genius  and  spirit  into  our  laws  and  institutions, 
are  everywhere  and  every  day  seen.  They  can  not  be 
denied  nor  repressed.  They  will  be  seen  and  felt.  It 
is  inevitable. 

God  is  recognized  and  Christianity  is  recognized 
in  every  piece  of  gold  and  silver  and  paper  money 
issued  by  the  Government,  bearing  a  date ;  in  our  re- 
ligious and  secular  holidays  established  by  law,  in  our 
conveyances  and  charters,  in  our  court  and  congres- 
sional and  legislative  records,  in  the  Anna  Domini 
which  dates  our  time,  in  our  diplomacy,  and  in  all  our 
legal  instruments  and  chaplaincies.  And  if,  in  all 
these  ways,  God  and  the  Christian  religion  have  been 
recognized  without  materially  marring  our  religious 
liberties,  two  things  must  be  admitted:  (i)  That  the 
term  God  in  the  Constitution  would  not  much  im- 
peril our  liberties.  (2)  That  our  brother  need  not  lose 
sleep  through  his  concern  for  the  safety  of  our  relig- 
ious liberties.  The  Colonel  makes  a  discovery,  which, 
however,  does  not  turn  out  to  be  true.    He  says : 

There  has  been  in  our  country  a  divorce  of  Church  and 
State.  This  follows  as  a  natural  sequence  of  the  declaration 
that  ''governments  derive  their  just  powers  from  the  consent 
of  the  governed.''  The  priest  was  no  longer  a  necessity.  His 
presence  was  a  contradiction  of  the  principle  on  which  the 
Republic  was  founded.  He  represented,  not  the  authority 
of  the  people,  but  of  some  "Power  from  on  High,"  and  to 
recognize  this  other  Power  was  inconsistent  with  free  gov- 
ernment. The  founders  of  the  Republic  at  that  time  parted 
company  with  the  priests,  and  said  to  them:  "You  may  turn 
your  attention  to  the  other  world — we  will  attend  to  the 
affairs   of  this."      Equal   liberty   was   given   to   all.      But   the 


REVIEW  OF  INGERSOLL.  423 

ultra-theologian  is  not  satisfied  with  this;  he  wishes  to  de- 
stroy the  liberties  of  the  people;  he  wishes  a  recognition  of 
his  God  as  the  source  of  authority,  to  the  end  that  the  Church 
may  become  the  supreme  power. 

He  says,  "There  has  been,  in  our  country,  a  di- 
vorce of  Church  and  State."  This  statement  is  not 
true ;  there  has  been  no  such  divorce ;  there  can  not 
be  a  divorce  where  there  has  been  no  marriage;  the 
Church  and  the  State  have  never  been  united  in  this 
country.  Possibly,  in  some  of  the  New  England  col- 
onies, and,  perhaps,  during  their  early  Statehood 
some  of  them  may  have  drawn  from  the  public  treas- 
ury moneys  to  support  the  Churches,  as  they  did  also, 
and  still  do,  to  support  the  schools.  But  there  has 
been  properly  and  really  no  union  of  the  Church  and 
the  State  established  by  law,  as  is  true  in  Great  Britain 
and  Russia. 

France  and  Belgium  both  contribute  from  the  pub- 
lic chest  for  the  support  of  religion,  and  yet  in  neither 
of  those  Governments  is  there  a  formal,  legal  union 
between  the  Church  and  the  State.  If  the  Colonel 
had  said,  "The  union  of  Church  and  State  in  this 
country  has  been  prevented,"  that  statement  would 
have  been  more  exactly  correct. 

The  Colonel  says,  "The  priest  was  no  longer  a 
necessity."  The  priest  has  never  been  a  necessity,  po- 
litically considered,  in  this  country.  As  a  citizen  he 
has  equal  right  with  the  lawyer,  the  politician,  or  any 
other  class,  and,  so  far  as  known,  he  may  be  equally 
useful. 

We  note,  in  the  following  paragraph,  like  hostility 
to  ministers,  and  like  false  assumptions : 

For  many  years  priests  have  attempted  to  give  to  our 
Government  a  religious  form.  Zealots  have  succeeded  in 
putting  the  legend  upon   our  money,   "In   God  We  Trust," 


424      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

and  we  have  chaplains  in  the  army  and  navy,  and  legislative 
proceedings  are  usually  opened  with  prayer.  All  this  is  con- 
trary to  the  genius  of  the  Republic,  contrary  to  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  and  contrary  really  to  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.  We  have  taken  the  ground  that  the 
people  can  govern  themselves  without  the  assistance  of  any 
Supernatural  Power.  We  have  taken  the  position  that  the 
people  are  the  real  and  only  rightful  source  of  authority. 
We  have  solemnly  declared  that  the  people  must  determine 
what  is  politically  right  and  what  is  wrong,  and  that  their 
legally-expressed  will  is  the  supreme  law.  This  leaves  no 
room  for  national  superstition,  no  room  for  patriotic  gods 
or  supernatural  beings,  and  this  does  away  with  the  neces- 
sity for  political  prayers. 


It  is  not  true  that  for  many  years  priests  have 
tried  to  give  this  Government  a  religious  form.  They 
have  never  tried  to  do  so.  It  is  true  that  some  of 
them  have  sought  to  have  God  recognized  in  the 
Constitution ;  but  to  accomplish  this  would  not  give 
this  Government  a  religious  form ;  and  that  fact 
achieved,  would  not  be  a  union  of  Church  and  State. 
To  insert  God's  name  in  the  Constitution  would  be  a 
recognition  of  a  fact  already  existing,  that  this  is  a 
Christian  Nation ;  and  it  is  such  because  made  up  of 
Christian  people,  and  because  its  civilization  is  a 
Christian  civilization.  Chaplaincies  in  our  Legisla- 
tures and  hospitals  and  barracks  and  navy  do  not 
give  our  Government  a  religious  form ;  nor  is  the  fact 
contrary  to  the  genius  of  the  Republic,  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  or  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States;  for  while  the  first  article  declares 
"Congress  shall  make  no  law  establishing  religion, " 
it  also  declares,  it  shall  make  no  law  "prohibiting  the 
free  exercise  thereof."  Congress  does  not  make  a  law 
establishing  religion  when  it  has  opened  its  sessions 
with  prayer,  and  when  it  employs  chaplains  in  army 
and  navy  and  in  our  eleemosynary  institutions.     If 


REVIEW  OE  INGERSOLL.  425 

Congress  should  refuse  to  make  provisions  by  law  for 
such  religious  services,  it  would,  thereby,  be  "pro- 
hibiting the  free  exercise  thereof." 

V.     Coeonee     INGERSOLE     misconceives    the 

NATURE      OF     OUR     CIVILIZATION      AND     THE      TRUE 

scope  and  spirit  of  our  institutions. — The  fol- 
lowing paragraph,  while  true  in  some  of  its  positions, 
is  as  to  others  untrue  and  misleading: 

The  Government  of  the  United  States  is  secular.  It  de- 
rives its  power  from  the  consent  of  man.  It  is  a  Govern- 
ment with  which  God  has  nothing  whatever  to  do — and  all 
forms  and  customs,  inconsistent  with  the  fundamental  fact 
that  the  people  are  the  source  of  authority,  should  be  aban- 
doned. In  this  country  there  should  be  no  oaths;  no  man 
should  be  sworn  to  tell  the  truth,  and  in  no  court  should 
there  be  any  appeal  to  any  Supreme  Being.  A  rascal,  by 
taking  the  oath,  appears  to  go  in  partnership  with  God,  and 
ignorant  jurors  credit  the  firm  instead  of  the  man.  A  wit- 
ness should  tell  his  story,  and  if  he  speaks  falsely  should  be 
considered  as  guilty  of  perjury.  Governors  and  Presidents 
should  not  issue  religious  Proclamations.  They  should  not 
call  upon  the  people  to  thank  God.  It  is  no  part  of  their 
official  duty.  It  is  outside  of  and  beyond  the  horizon  of  their 
authority.  There  is  nothing  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  to  justify  this  religious  impertinence. 

It  is  true  the  Government  of  the  United  States  is 
secular,  but  it  is  not  therefore  pagan,  Mohammedan, 
Brahmin,  Confucian,  or  savage.  Yet  it  can  not  fail 
to  recognize  and  protect  the  religious  rights  and  obli- 
gations of  its  Christian  citizens.  To  fail  to  do  so  would 
be  to  violate  the  very  first  article  of  the  Constitution, 
as  we  have  seen.  The  Colonel  says  the  Government  of 
this  country  "derives  its  powers  from  the  consent  of 
man."  This  is  not  true ;  its  powers  are  "derived  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed?'  The  governed,  in  this 
case,  are,  for  the  chief  part,  Christians  and  citizens. 
They  are  to  be  governed,  not  as  pagans,  nor  by  means 


426      SIXTV-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

of  a  pagan  civilization,  but  as  Christians,  and  by  a 
Christian  civilization. 

Nor  again,  is  it  true  that  ours  "is  a  Government 
with  which  God  has  nothing  whatever  to  do."  From 
the  beginning  of  our  history  God  has  had  very  much 
to  do  with  us.  He  still  has;  he  will  continue  to  have 
much  to  do  with  our  Government  and  people.  In  the 
infancy  of  our  existence,  he  gave  victory  to  our  army. 
He  aided  our  fathers  in  founding  our  institutions  and 
in  framing  our  Constitution.  Our  Nation  owes  its  in- 
tegrity to  the  Christian  loyalty  of  its  brave  defenders, 
to  whom  God  gave  victory  in  the  late  Civil  War. 

It  is  a  non-sequitur  to  affirm,  as  Colonel  Inger- 
soll  does,  that  "in  this  country  there  should  be  no 
oaths,"  and  that  "no  one  should  be  sworn  to  tell  the 
truth ;"  i.  e.,  these  conclusions  do  not  follow  from  the 
nature  and  genius  of  our  Government,  and  certainly 
not  from  the  Constitution.  Article  6  requires  that  "all 
senators  and  representatives  and  the  members  of  the 
several  Legislatures,  and  all  executive  and  judicial 
officers  of  the  several  States,  shall  be  bound  by  oath 
or  affirmation  to  support  the  Constitution." 

The  expedient  by  which  Colonel  Ingersoll  would 
get  testimony  without  administering  oaths  is  imprac- 
ticable and  deceptive.  He  says,  "A  witness  should  tell 
his  story,  and,  if  he  speaks  falsely,  he  should  be  con- 
sidered as  guilty  of  perjury ;"  i.  c,  he  should  be  pun- 
ished as  having  committed  perjury  when  he  had  not 
committed  perjury,  and,  indeed,  could  not  have  com- 
mitted perjury,  because  he  had  not  taken  an  oath 
at  all. 

In  his  wish  to  avoid  an  appeal  to  God  by  a  wit- 
ness, he  would  enact  a  fraud  into  law,  and  use  a  trick, 
and  punish  people  for  a  crime  not  committed  and  not 
possible  to  be  committed.  His  objection  to  an  oath 
is  peculiar.     "The  rascal,  who  appeals  to  God  by  an 


REVIEW  OE  INGERSOLL.  427 

oath,  appears  to  go  into  partnership  with  God,  and  ig- 
norant jurors  credit  the  firm  instead  of  the  man." 

This  is  a  shallow  device  to  justify  atheism  in  prac- 
tice. It  is  implied  that  "the  ignorant  jurors"  hold 
evidence  higher,  in  cases  when  the  witness  appeals  to 
God,  than  when  he  does  not.  Here  is  another  char- 
acteristic sneer  at  Christians.  The  jurors  who  believe 
in  oaths  are  "ignorant  jurors."  It  is  implied,  also, 
that  the  men  who  appeal  to  God  in  an  oath,  appear 
to  take  God  into  partnership,  and  that,  in  doing  so, 
they  adopt  the  policy  of  the  rascal. 

The  safer  way,  the  surer  way  to  get  the  truth  from 
a  witness,  is  to  have  him  sworn.  There  may  now  and 
then  be  a  rascal  who  commits  perjury;  but  I  would 
rather  trust  men  who  appeal  to  God  than  trust  men 
who  discard  God,  and  who,  instead,  form  a  partnership 
with  the  devil.  As  at  present  advised,  it  is  safer,  all 
round,  to  trust  the  firm  of  God  and  Company  than 
the  firm  of  the  devil  and  company. 

It  is  no  infraction  of  the  spirit  and  intent  of  the 
Constitution  as  it  is;  and,  if  it  were,  then  the  Consti- 
tution should  be  changed  so  that  it  would  not  be  held, 
and  could  not  be  held,  unconstitutional  for  presidents 
and  governors  to  issue  proclamations,  appointing 
thanksgiving-days,  and  calling  on  the  people  to  thank 
God.  This  policy  is  in  line  with  all  the  declared  pur- 
poses and  objects  of  the  Constitution,  to  recognize 
the  moral  nature  of  the  citizen  and  the  God  to  whom 
that  moral  nature  holds  relation,  and  whose  provi- 
dence is  in  the  thought  and  moral  consciousness  of 
nine-tenths  of  the  citizens.  The  objects  of  the  Con- 
stitution are  "to  establish  justice,  to  form  a  more  per- 
fect union,  to  insure  domestic  tranquillity,  and  the 
common  defense,  the  general  welfare,  and  the  bless- 
ings of  liberty-"  These  objects  are  all  subserved  by 
exalting  the  sense  of  moral  dependence  and  of  moral 


428      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

obligation  to  God.  Thanksgiving-days  and  fast-days, 
chaplains  in  army  and  navy,  in  Congress  and  Legis- 
latures, and  in  eleemosynary  institutions,  have  this  ten- 
dency, and  therefore,  in  a  high  degree,  they  are  con- 
stitutional. 

The  Christians,  who  sustain  this  Government,  and 
who  from  time  to  time  administer  it,  certainly  have 
as  much  stake  in  it,  and  as  intelligently  apprehend 
how  great  that  stake  is,  and  they  are  certainly  quite 
as  able  and  as  well  entitled  to  judge  of  the  best  way 
in  which  the  objects  sought  by  the  Constitution  can 
be  subserved,  as  a  man  can  be  who  declares  that  "the 
being  of  God  is  a  mere  matter  of  opinion." 

"One  man  should  not  be  allowed  to  interfere  with 
the  liberty  of  another,"  says  our  atheistic  friend,  and 
so  say  I,  and  therefore  I  say  to  him,  "Hands  off." 
His  liberty  is  license,  as  seen  in  his  advocacy  of  the 
rights  of  D.  M.  Bennett  to  liberty  after  he  had  been 
convicted  of  a  crime  against  society. 

The  Colonel's  by-play  on  God's  ability  to  take 
care  of  himself,  and  therefore  as  not  needing  our 
help  to  get  himself  in  the  Constitution,  is  too  flippant, 
after  he  has  reduced  God's  existence  to  "a  mere  matter 
of  opinion."  Certainly  God  does  not  need  our  help 
so  much  as  we  need  his.  He  can  better  afford  to  be 
non-recognized  in  the  Constitution  than  we  can  afford 
to  be  non-recognized  by  him. 

The  Colonel's  account  of  God's  government  of  the 
nations,  and  of  his  tyranny  and  injustice,  are  gross 
perversions  and  caricatures.  It  is  proper  to  add  as 
to  the  Colonel's  paper,  that  some  parts  of  it,  in  which 
he  describes  the  nature  and  uses  of  an  organic  law, 
are  well  enough  and  true  enough  taken  by  them- 
selves, but  he  has  marred  and  weakened  their  force 
by  his  gratuitous  and  vitriolic  objurgations  against 
the  Bible  and  God  and  Christianity. 


RE VIE 'JV  OF  INGERSOLL.  429 

We  arc  not  tenacious  for  placing-  the  name  of  God 
in  the  Constitution.  This  is  a  Christian  Government, 
administered  by  Christian  people  and  upon  Christian 
principles,  whatever  may  be  in,  or  not  in,  the  Consti- 
tution. If  it  were  not  a  Christian  Government,  it 
would  not  long  survive;  and  it  is  a  Christian  Govern- 
ment, none  the  less,  that  it  is  not  declared  to  be  in 
the  organic  law. 

VI.  The  ideal  government  of  Colonel  Inger- 

SOLL  IS  A  LOGICAL  ABSURDITY  AND  IMPOSSIBILITY. 

I  raise  the  question  as  pertinent,  in  view  of  the  passion- 
ate efforts  of  Colonel  Ingersoll  to  make  our  Republic 
atheistic.  Where  is  there  to  be  found,  on  the  face  of 
the  earth,  where  has  there  ever  been  found,  a  nation 
of  infidels  or  a  civilization  of  atheists?  What  kind  of 
a  Government  would  that  be?  Nobody  knows.  No- 
body can  conjecture.  It  would  be  a  monstrosity  the 
earth  has  never  seen.  There  would  be  no  controlling 
authority,  no  cohering  vitality  in  it. 

Chaplain  McCabe  some  years  ago  gave,  as  a 
dream,  a  picture  of  Ingersollville,  a  city  from  the  civil- 
ization of  which  God  was  excluded,  and  the  city  was 
walled  to  keep  God  out.  Lust  and  profanity  and  crime 
and  robbery  and  violence  and  disorder  prevailed, 
until  the  better  class  of  atheists  themselves  fled  from 
it  in  dismay,  as  they  would  from  a  pest-house.  Infidels 
can  not  deny  the  existence,  in  our  world,  of  death,  and 
grief  and  tears,  and  disappointment.  What  remedy  do 
they  propose  for  the  sorrows  of  earth,  which,  sooner 
or  later,  come  to  all?  What  alleviation  does  atheism 
or  agnosticism  offer  ? 

Christianity  presents  a  balm  for  every  wounded 
heart,  a  cordial  for  our  fears.  It  is  effective,  it  has 
been  proved  adequate  by  millions  of  our  race,  by  vast 
numbers  of  our  fellow-countrymen.  Why  seek  to 
knock  that  prop  down,  until  another,  and  at  least  an 


430      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK'. 

equal  support,  is  found?  Then,  moreover,  this  Repub- 
lic is  to-day  the  richest  and  most  potent  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  and  in  culture  and  learning  and  intelli- 
gence and  morals  and  civilization  it  excels  every 
other.  And  to  what  shall  we  ascribe  it?  All  the  other 
nations  who  approximate  us  in  power  and  resources 
are  Christian  nations,  and  they  are  strong  and  pros- 
perous as  they  are  Christian. 

What  a  terrible  catastrophe  it  would  be  if  Colonel 
Ingersoll's  ideas  should  become  prevalent  in  this 
country  and  world  of  ours !  Joy  thus  cut  off  from 
human  hearts  and  lives  by  a  blank  atheism,  or  a 
blanker  agnosticism,  and  the  great  Republic,  so  hon- 
ored and  so  exalted  and  prosperous,  relegated  to  the 
dull  stagnation  and  collapse  which  an  atheistic  con- 
trol of  its  affairs  would  superinduce ;  we  should  re- 
semble that  dead,  ruined  planet,  the  moon,  upon  whose 
lifeless,  waterless,  treeless,  verdureless  surface  the 
fructifying  light  and  warmth  of  the  sun  fall  in  vain. 
Mr.  Ingersoll,  himself,  is  what  he  is,  not  as  an  atheist, 
nor  an  agnostic,  nor  as  the  product  of  either,  but  as  a 
man  of  brilliant  powers,  the  product  of  the  Christian 
civilization  under  which  he  was  reared.  He  can  not 
produce  a  civilization  of  atheism  anywhere ;  nor  a  man 
that  was  ever  raised  up  under  an  atheistic  civilization. 
He  was  not  himself.  He  has  not  the  power,  thank 
God,  to  make  of  himself,  because  environed  by  Chris- 
tian influences,  what  he  would  be  if  raised  up  exclu- 
sively under  the  power  of  his  own  principles. 

The  Colonel's  vaporings  against  the  religiousness 
of  our  civilization  proceeds  upon  a  false  and  vicious 
theory  of  our  institutions.  Our  Government  is  a  rep- 
resentative one.  Tt  should  represent  the  Christian 
civilization  of  its  constituents.  It  must  do  this,  or  it 
is  not  truly  republican.  Its  constituency  are  not  chim- 
panzees, apes,  idiots,  or  atheists.     For  the  most  part, 


CENTRAL    CHURCH,   SPRINGFIELD.  43 1 

they  are  people  of  brains,  good  morals,  and  Christian 
lives  and  characters.  As  already  stated,  forty  millions 
of  them  are  such;  fifteen  millions  more  of  them  are 
minors ;  of  the  remaining  five  millions,  not  the  fiftieth 
part  are  of  Colonel  Ingersoll's  peculiar  atheistic  views. 
In  its  laws  and  administration  our  Government  should 
reflect  and  represent  the  better  qualities  of  the  sixty 
millions  of  its  constituents,  and  it  should  not  punish 
them  in  the  way  Colonel  Ingersoll  and  his  hundred 
thousand  atheistic  associates  would  propose.  In  other 
words,  the  dog  should  wag  the  tail,  and  not  the  tail 
the  dog.  A  republican  government  which  does  not 
represent  the  learning,  culture,  brains,  morals,  and 
religion  of  its  people,  is  a  mockery,  a  usurpation,  and 
a  fraud.  For  the  Colonel,  himself,  we  have  profound 
sorrow  and  pity.  He  has  abilities  which,  properly 
wielded,  might  be  greatly  serviceable  to  his  country 
and  his  race;  abilities  which  would  qualify  him  to 
govern  men  and  guide  the  State.  But  these  abilities 
perverted,  as  he  seems  bent  on  perverting  them,  may 
gain  him  the  applause  of  libertines  and  base  men,  who 
want  religion  shorn  and  debased,  so  that  their  pol- 
lution and  wrong  may  receive  less  rebuke  and  hin- 
drance. 

He  may  gain  the  plaudits  of  shallow  thinkers  and 
surface  men,  and  he  may  wreck  the  faith  and  the  lives 
of,  here  and  there,  a  young  man;  but  let  him,  as  to  him- 
self, remember: 

"One  self-approving  hour  whole  years  outweighs 
Of  stupid  starers  and  of  loud  huzzas." 

Central  Church,  Springfield,  numbered  over 
one  thousand  members.  I  deemed  it  too  large,  and 
requiring  too  much  labor  to  serve  it  longer,  and 
having  received  an   earnest   application   from   the 


432     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

First  Methodist  Eipscopal  Church  of  Xenia  to  be- 
come their  pastor,  I  was  appointed  to  that  Church 
by  Bishop  Harris  from  the  Conference  of  1890. 
This  is  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  honored  of  the 
charges  in  the  Conference.  It  has  had  some  of  the 
strongest  and  most  eminent  ministers  in  its  long 
list  of  pastors.  It  would  have  been  gratifying  to 
have  filled  out  the  full  term  here.  With  this  dear 
people  and  in  this  most  delightful  charge  three  very 
happy  and  not  fruitless  years  were  spent;  but  the 
presiding  bishop,  J.  F.  Hurst,  and  the  Cabinet 
thought  otherwise.  Among  the  pastors  who  had 
served  the  First  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in 
Xenia  were  Raper,  Latta,  Ancil  Brooks,  William 
Herr;  J.  F.  Marlay,  who  has  served  the  Church 
acceptably  three  full  pastorates  of  two,  three,  and 
five  years,  and  he  would  be  current  for  a  fourth 
term;   Lucien   Clark. 

Great  revivals  have  occurred  here.  The  present 
pastor,  1898,  is  John  J.  McCabe,  who  completes  his 
fifth  year  the  present  September.  His  great  revival 
the  first  year  of  his  term  was  a  glorious  work,  in- 
deed. Some  three  hundred  souls  professed  con- 
version. The  present  membership  has  increased 
from  some  four  or  five  hundred  to  eight  hundred. 
During  his  fourth  year  a  large  Church  improve- 
ment has  been  projected  and  carried  to  comple- 
tion. It  increases  the  seating  capacity  from  six 
hundred  to  twelve  hundred.  The  appointments  are 
all  of  the  most  modern  type.  They  include  church 
parlors,  Sunday-school  class-rooms,  and  committee- 
rooms,  electric-lights,  sheds  for  tli£  country  mem- 


Cincinnati  conference  resolution.     433 

hers'  horses  and  carriages ;  complete  steam-heating 
arrangements  are  furnished.  The  outside  is  fin- 
ished in  dark-brown  and  light-brown  stone  for 
foundations  and  front  elevation,  and  the  side  walls 
in  Milwaukee  pressed  brick.  A  new  church  with 
all  these  appointments  would  not  cost  less  than 
thirty  thousand  dollars.  The  acoustic  quality  is 
perfect.  The  ventilation  is  of  the  best.  The  ex- 
pense is  all  provided  for. 

The  Cincinnati  Conference  of  1890  has  the  fol- 
lowing entries  on  the  third  day  of  the  session : 

The  following  paper,  offered  by  F.  G.  Mitchell, 
was  adopted : 

"Whereas,  Our  brother,  Thomas  H.  Pearne,  will 
close,  in  1891,  fifty  years  of  connection  with  the  Meth- 
odist itinerancy,  during  which  time  he  has  passed 
through  exceedingly  varied  and  interesting  experi- 
ences; therefore, 

"Resolved,  That  we  respectfully  request  Dr.  Pearne 
to  preach  a  semi-centennial  sermon  at  some  time  dur- 
ing the  next  Conference  session.  F.  G.  Mitchell, 
George  H.  Dart,  J.  P.  Porter,  Thomas  Lee,  W.  I.  Fee, 
R.  H.  Rust,  W.  L.  Hypes,  J.  T.  Bail,  J.  F.  Marlay. 

"On  motion  of  J.  F.  Conrey,  the  time  for  the 
service  was  fixed  for  the  evening  preceding  the  Con- 
ference." 

On  the  fourth  day  of  the  same  session,  on  mo- 
tion of  J.  F.  Conrey,  the  time  for  Dr.  Pearne's 
semi-centennial  sermon  was  changed  from  Tues- 
day evening  to  some  morning  hour.  During  the 
year,  by  correspondence  with  Bishop  Foster,  who 
28 


434      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

was  to  preside  at  the  Cincinnati  Conference  in  189 1, 
the  time  was  fixed  for  the  morning  of  the. opening 
session,  as  a  part  of  the  opening  exercises. 

In  the  opening  Proceedings  of  the  Conference, 
it  is  stated : 

"By  request  of  the  Conference,  at  its  last  year's 
session,  Thomas  H.  Pearne,  D.  D.,  preached  a  semi- 
centennial sermon." 

On  the  second  day  of  the  session,  Dr.  J.  F.  Mar- 
lay  presented  a  resolution  as  follows,  viz. : 

"Resolved,  That,  having  listened  with  great  delight 
and  satisfaction  to  the  semi-centennial  sermon  of  Rev. 
Thomas  H.  Pearne,  D.  Dv  at  the  opening  session  of 
our  Conference,  we  do  earnestly  request  its  publica- 
tion in  pamphlet  form,  as  a  part  of  the  permanent  his- 
torical literature  of  our  Church.  Signed  by  William 
Herr  and  J.  F.  Marlay.  The  motion  was  adopted  by 
a  rising  vote." 

I  have  been  advised  to  reprint  the  sermon  in  this 
volume,  and  I  do  so  for  the  following  reasons: 
I.  Much  of  the  matter  in  it  is  not  found  in  this 
book;  2.  There  is  no  provision  for  issuing  subse- 
quent editions  of  the  sermon ;  3.  The  first  edition 
was  long  ago  exhausted. 

SEMI-CENTENNIAL  SERMON. 
Dear  Fathers  and  Brethren  : 

In  attempting  a  special  sermon  like  this,  I  can 
not  escape  a  feeling  of  timidity  and  shrinking,  lest 
it  should  seem  too  much  like  self-appreciation. 
Pray,  dear  brethren,   that   self  may   sink   from   view, 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL   SERMON.  435 

and  that  Christ  may  be  exalted.     I  trust  I  can  say 

I  know  I  want  to  say — most  sincerely,  in  the  words 
of  Charles  Wesley's  hymn  : 

"  Whate'er  in  me  seems  wise  or  good, 
Or  strong,  I  here  disclaim ; 
I  wash  my  garments  in  the  blood 
Of  the  atoning  Lamb." 

And  so  we  are  brought  to  the  chosen  theme  of  this 
discourse,  which  is:  "The  supreme  aim  of  all  true 
Christians  is,  that  God  may  be  honored  and  magni- 
fied." This  being  the  fact  as  to  Christians  in  general, 
it  is  pre-eminently  so  of  those  who  have  for  a  long 
term,  and  in  God's  higher  ministries,  shared  his  abun- 
dant mercies. 

The  following  Scripture  texts  illustrate  and  en- 
force this  duty: 

"  I  will  bless  the  Lord  at  all  times ;  his  praise  shall  con- 
tinually be  in  my  mouth.  My  soul  shall  make  her  boast  in 
the  Lord:  the  humble  shall  hear  thereof,  and  be  glad.  O 
magnify  the  Lord  with  me,  and  let  us  exalt  his  name  to- 
gether!"—Psai^m  xxxiv,  1-3. 

To  magnify  the  Lord  is  to  recognize  him  con- 
tinually by  praise ;  to  boast  in  him ;  to  exalt  his  name 
of  wisdom,  power,  and  grace  as  shown  to  his  servants. 

"Let  all  those  that  seek  thee  rejoice  and  be  glad  in  thee: 
let  such  as  love  thy  salvation  say  continually,  The  Lord  be 
magnified."— Psai^m  xi<,  16. 

Those  who  seek  the  Lord  rejoice  and  are  glad 
in  him.  Those  who  love  his  salvation  have  no  other 
desire  but  that  God  should  be  magnified. 

"I  will  praise  the  name  of  God  with  a  song,  and  will 
magnify  him  with  thanksgiving."— Psai.m  i,xix,  30. 

"And  this  was  known  to  all  the  Jews  and  Greeks  also 
dwelling  at  Ephesus;  and  fear  fell  on  them  all,  and  the  name 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  was  magnified."— Acts  xix,  17. 


436      SI  XT  V- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

"According  to  my  earnest  expectation  and  my  hope,  that 
in  nothing  I  shall  be  ashamed,  but  that  with  all  boldness,  as 
always,  so  now  also,  Christ  shall  be  magnified  in  my  body, 
whether  it  be  by  life  or  by  death." — Phiuppians  I,  20. 

This  service  of  magnifying  the  Lord  is  due  for 
personal  and  official  blessings ;  for  the  pleasure  God 
has  in  the  prosperity  of  his  servants ;  for  God's  sav- 
ing strength,  and  for  the  work  that  God  does  in  men 
and  by  men,  and  especially  by  means  of  consecrated 
men,  and  for  the  honor  God  confers  in  making  us 
"workers  together  with  him." 

I. 

I  find  abundant  reasons,  in  my  personal  expe- 
rience of  God,  for  all  these  years  of  blessing  in  his 
service,  for  magnifying  the  Lord.  For  the  zeal  and 
constancy  God  has  given  me  through  a  long  and 
diversified  career;  for  his  providential  care  in  all  the 
remarkable  conditions  of  a  life  of  more  than  an  aver- 
age of  incident  through  which  I  have  come ;  for  en- 
abling me  to  learn  and  love  and  practice,  to  some  de- 
gree, Mr.  Wesley's  golden  maxims;  namely,  "Do 
all  the  good  you  can,  by  all  the  means  you  can,  in 
all  the  ways  you  can,  in  all  the  places  you  can,  at  all 
the  times  you  can,  to  all  the  people  you  can,  and  as 
long  as  you  can" — for  all  this  I  magnify  the  Lord. 

A  few  weeks  ago,  I  received  a  letter  from  a  pre- 
siding elder  in  one  of  the  largest  and  most  influential 
Conferences  in  the  connection.  He  stands  in  the 
front  rank  of  the  men  of  power  among  us,  although 
he  is  nearing  his  threescore  and  ten.  His  district 
has  over  seventy-five  appointments,  on  a  string  one 
hundred  miles  long  and  no  width,  with  a  growing  city 
on  one  end.  He  writes,  with  typewriter,  fourteen  hun- 
dred letters  in  a  year  on  the  business  of  his  district. 


M Y  SEMI-CENTENNIAL   SERMON.  437 

Such  a  man,  with  such  a  capacity  and  success,  should 
magnify  the  Lord.  His  life  does.  And  yet  there  were 
preachers  who,  after  he  had  preached  twenty-live 
years,  advised  him  to  retire  and  give  the  young  men 
a  chance.  He  replied,  in  substance:  "I  will  not  stand 
in  your  way.  If  you  want  my  place,  prove  your  bet- 
ter right  to  it  by  your  doing,  and  the  Church  and 
God  will  give  it  to  you."  I  magnify  the  Lord's  name 
that  this  noble,  glorious  man  had  the  grace  to  decline 
to  step  down  and  out  until  God  should  clearly  so 
direct  him. 

Some  one  has  well  said  that  the  union  of  age  and 
youth  in  Church-life — the  fire  and  energy  of  the  one 
and  the  chastened  caution  of  the  other — should  ever 
be  blended  in  the  work  for  Christ.  We  do  not  retire 
bishops  and  college  presidents  and  professors  when 
they  reach  a  ripe  age.  Our  cause  suffers  no  harm  in 
consequence.  On  the  contrary,  it,  is  subserved.  The 
same  writer  adds :  "Young  ministers  and  laymen  who 
are  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost  are  charged  with  enthu- 
siasm as  a  battery  is  charged  with  electricity.  They 
have  had  no  defeats  and  little  experience  in  Church 
work.  It  is  well  that  there  are  always  some  in  the 
Church  who  have  not  had  much  experience.  Inex- 
perienced Christians  have  their  mission.  To  balance 
and  guide  this  youthful  energy,  there  are  the  con- 
servatism and  caution  of  the  older  members.  Let  not 
the  young  become  impatient  of  the  counsels  of  the 
old,  and  let  not  the  old  despise  the  zeal  and  hope  of 
the  young.  Separate  them,  and  neither  will  prosper. 
Unite  them,  and  let  the  love  of  God  blend  them  into 
perfect  harmony,  and  the  Church  will  be  'fair  as  the 
moon,  clear  as  the  sun,  and  terrible  as  an  army  with 
banners.'  " 

As  a  preparation  for  the  life  God  has  enabled  me 
to  live,  he  gave  me,  for  three  generations,  a  god1-/ 


438      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

Methodist  ancestry,  and  a  holy  father  and  mother, 
in  a  beautiful  Christian  home.  That  is  to  say,  I  was 
well-born.  For  forty-two  years  my  father  was  a  Meth- 
odist traveling  preacher.  My  maternal  grandfather 
and  great-grandfather  were  local  preachers  in  Mr. 
Wesley's  connection.  They  doubtless  received  their 
licenses  to  preach  from  his  hands. 

My  eldest  brother,  who  went  to  his  reward  last  No- 
vember, answered  the  Conference  roll-call  for  fifty- 
five  years ;  my  own  name  has  stood  on  the  list  fifty 
years ;  making  for  my  father  and  his  two  sons  one  hun- 
dred and  forty  years  of  ministerial  work,  an  average 
for  each  of  forty-six  and  one-third  years.*  At  eight 
years  of  age,  during  a  great  revival  among  children 
in  my  boyhood  village,  in  Central  New  York — New 
York  Mills — I  was  graciously  saved.  I  knew  the  re- 
newing and  adopting  grace  of  God.  Rev.  Bishop 
Edward  G.  Andrews  was  also  converted  in  the  same 
revival.  After  a  year  or  two,  I  declined  in  piety ;  but 
at  thirteen  I  was  powerfully  reclaimed.  At  fifteen,  in^ 
the  same  village,  I  was  appointed  a'  class-leader,  with 
a  class  numbering  forty  members.  Six  months  later, 
I  received  a  license  as  an  exhorter  from  Rev.  Schuyler 
Hoes,  preacher  in  charge  of  New  York  Mills  Station. 
At  sixteen  I  was  licensed  as  a  local  preacher.  From 
that  time  forward  I  have  been  engaged  in  the  blessed 
work  of  the  Christian  ministry. 

For  the  grace,  which  has  cheered  and  sustained 
me  through  a  long  and  happy  life,  and  which,  for  the 
last  seventeen  years,  has  kept  me  under  the  power 


*  This  was  printed  several  years  ago.  It  should  be  cor- 
rected thus:  Father's  ministry  as  an  itinerant  extended  from 
1832  to  1874 — forty-two  years;  ni}'  brother's,  fifty-five  years; 
and  my  own,  sixty-one  years;  in  all,  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
eight  years,  an  average  of  fifty-two  and  two-third  years, 


MY  SEM r-CENTENNIAL   SERMON.  439 

of  the  cleansing  blood  of  Christ,  and  which,  as  junior 
circuit  preacher,  preacher  in  charge,  presiding  elder, 
missionary,  and  Christian  editor,  has  kept  me  going, 
and  given  me  success,  I  magnify  the  Lord.  Twenty- 
eight  years  I  have  served  as  a  pastor.  Twelve  years 
I  have  been  presiding  elder,  and  ten  years  editor  of 
Christian  journals.  Mr.  Wesley  requested  one  of  his 
preachers  to  write  an  account  of  his  life.  He  was 
reluctant  to  do  so.  Mr.  Wesley  said :  "I  really  think 
you  owe  it  (in  spite  of  shame  and  timidity)  to  God, 
to  me,  and  to  your  brethren." 

II. 

After  having  passed  my  threescore  and  ten  years, 
and  more  than  two-thirds  of  them  in  the  ministry, 
I  present  this  brief  sketch  to  the  honor  of  God,  and 
upon  the  call  of  my  brethren. 

God  makes  honorable  mention  of  the  aged.  Of 
Moses,  when  he  had  reached  sixscore  years,  it  is  said : 
"His  eye  was  not  dim,  nor  his  natural  force  abated." 
At  eighty-five,  Caleb  said  he  was  as  strong  as  at  forty- 
five.  When  Joshua  was  five  and  a  half  score  years  old, 
God  commended  his  piety,  fidelity,  and  success. 

God  requires  respect  to  be  shown  to  the  aged,  and 
especially  to  those  who  have  grown  old  in  his  service. 
He  recognizes  the  value  of  the  experience  and  wis- 
dom which  age  should  gather  and  dispense.  By  a 
wise  provision,  God  links  different  generations  to 
each  other  by  a  few  long  lives.  These  gather  and 
transmit  historical  truth  from  the  earlier  times  to  the 
later ;  and  for  this  we  have  warrant  in  the  following : 
"Remember  the  days  of  old,  consider  the  years  of 
many  generations :  ask  thy  father,  and  he  will  shew 
thee ;  thy  elders,  and  they  will  tell  thee."  (Deut. 
xxxii,  7.)  Between  Adam  and  Noah,  there  was  but 
one  life,  and  that  life  was  his  father's.    When  Adam 


440      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

died.  Noah's  father  was  fifty-six  years  old.  Noah  may 
have  seen  and  conversed  with  those  who  had  known 
Adam. 

Abraham  was  born  fifty-eight  years  before  Noah 
died.  Methuselah,  Noah's  grandfather,  lived  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  before  Adam  died.  He  was  con- 
temporary with  Noah  several  hundred  years.  Really, 
Noah's,  Lamech's,  and  Adam's  lives  spanned  the  years 
between  Abraham  and  the  creation.  Abraham  may 
have  talked  with  some  of  his  ancestors,  who  had  seen 
and  talked  with  some  of  Adam's  contemporaries. 

III. 

During  the  present  year  we  observed  the  anniver- 
sary of  John  Wesley's  death.  Blessed  man !  honored 
of  God,  and  revered  by  millions  on  earth  and  in 
heaven,  for  the  work  he  did  for  God  and  man !  Yet 
in  Wesley's  ancestors  of  three  or  four  generations, 
God  connected  Wesley's  times  with  those  of  Luther, 
Zwingli,  Melanchthon,  Knox,  and  Calvin. 

Through  my  ancestors  I  touch  the  generation  that 
touched  the  great  reformers  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
Benn  Pitman,  the  stenographer,  claims  to  be  the  only 
man  in  the  United  States  who  has  shaken  hands  with 
one  who  has  shaken  hands  with  John  Wesley.  I  chal- 
lenge this  statement.  Mrs.  Lester,  of  New  York  Mills, 
N.  Y.,  where  I  grew  up,  had  often  heard  Mr.  Wesley 
preach,  and  had  shaken  hands  with  him.  I  have  re- 
peatedly shaken  hands  with  Mrs.  Lester.  In  1840 
and  1 841,  Rev.  James  Jay  was  a  member  of  the  charge 
I  filled  during  those  years.  Mr.  Jay  had  been  a  mem- 
ber of  Mr.  Wesley's  Conference  for  years  before  Mr. 
Wesley's  death.  He  gave  me  many  touching  and 
beautiful  incidents  of  Wesley.  He  had  often  shaken 
hands  with  Mr.  Wesley,  and  I  have,  not  seldom, 
shaken  hands  with  him.    Thus  long  lives  connect  not 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL   SERMON.  4^. 

only   distant   generations,   but   great   historic    events. 
The  Wyoming  massacre  occurred  July  3,  1783.    I  have 
shaken  hands  and  conversed  with  a  lady  in  that  val- 
ley, who  was  present  when  Brandt  and  General  Butler 
entered  the  fort  after  that  bloody  killing.     In  the  same 
valley,  a  matronly  lady,  Mrs.  Dennison,  daughter-in- 
law  of  Colonel  Dennison,  who  commanded  the  United 
States  forces  on  that  dreadful  day,  entertained  Bishops 
Asbury  and  McKendree  in  her  house  for  over  a  week 
when  she  was  a  bride.     She  gave  me  interesting  in- 
cidents of  that  memorable  week.     My  father  saw  and 
heard    Bishops    McKendree    and    George.      He    also 
heard  the  eminent  John  Summerfield,  who,  at  twenty- 
five,  was  deemed  one  of  the  most  eloquent  preachers 
in  America.     My  personal  acquaintance  with  Meth- 
odist bishops  began  with  Bishop  R.  R.  Roberts,  who 
presided  at  the  Conference  when  I  was  admitted  on 
trial.     Bishop  Roberts  was  the  first  married  man  who 
filled   the   office   of  a   Methodist   bishop   in   America. 
He  was  elected  in  1816.     He  was  tall  and  elegant  in 
form  and  bearing.     I  heard  him  preach  a  sermon  of 
great  power  on   Luke  xvi,  29,   30,  31  :  "They  have 
Moses  and  the  prophets,  let  them  hear  them,"   etc. 
He  remarked  that  a  visitant  to  our  world,  sent  from 
the  place  of  torment  to  warn  men  against  going  there, 
would  be  much  more  likely  to  terrify  them  than  to 
persuade  them  to  be  saved.     In  that  connection  he 
.  quoted   the   well-known   lines   of   Shakespeare,   thus : 
"Causing 

'Each  particular  hair  to  stand  on  end, 
Like  quills  upon  the  fretful  porcupine.' " 

Except  Roberts  and  Burns,  Bishops  of  Liberia,  I  have 
personally  known  all  the  bishops  since  elected.  Soule, 
who  ordained  me  a  deacon,  had  dignity,  amounting 
almost  to  hauteur.     Hedding  was  the  Webster  of  the 


442      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

Episcopal  College.  He  was  well  stocked  with  judicial 
sense.  Waugh  ordained  me  an  elder.  He  was  cour- 
teous and  refined.  Emory  was  scholarly.  Janes  was 
brimming  with  authority.  Morris,  like  the  great  West 
whence  he  came,  was  large,  strong,  sensible,  and 
kindly.  Hamline  was  one  of  the  most  eloquent  of 
preachers.  At  times  his  preaching  was  overpower- 
ing. I  have  seen  audiences  swayed  under  his  elo- 
quence as  trees  of  the  forest  in  a  mighty  wind.  Of 
the  bishops  later  elected,  I  need  not  speak  more  spe- 
cifically. The  rank  and  file  of  this  Conference  have 
seen  the  most  of  them.  They  will  soon  see  and  know 
the  remainder  and  their  immediate  successors. 

I  personally  knew  some  of  the  earlier  celebrities 
of  our  Church,  who,  while  not  reaching  episcopal 
honors,  were  not  a  whit  behind  the  chiefest  of  our 
bishops  in  talents,  in  pulpit  power,  and  in  wide,  far- 
reaching  influence.  Of  these  I  name  William  Case, 
the  missionary  to  the  Indians  in  Canada.  Dr.  Nathan 
Bangs  entered  the  Nevv  York  Conference  in  1802, 
only  eighteen  years  after  our  Church  was  organized. 
He  was  often  in  our  home  in  my  early  childhood. 
He  baptized  me  in  Duane  Street  Church,  in  New 
York.  Rev.  Dr.  William  Phcebus,  who  entered  the 
traveling  connection  1783;  Samuel  Merwin,  Daniel 
Ostrander,  Billy  Hibbard,  Marmaduke  Pearce,  Ben- 
jamin Bidlack,  George  Lane,  George  Peck,  Alfred 
Griffith;  Henry  Boehm,  Asbury's  traveling  compan- 
ion; John  A.  Collins,  John  P.  Durbin,  Elias  Bowen, 
and  so  many  more,  laid  their  hands  in  blessing  on  my 
head  in  my  boyhood. 

IV. 

George  Gary  was  a  man  of  marvelous  eloquence 
and  power.  Fifty  odd  years  ago  I  heard  him  preach 
a  sermon  at  a  camp-meeting,  which   first  drew  his 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL   SERMON.  443 

audience  to  their  feet  in  a  dense  mass  around  him, 
and  then  I  saw  probably  a  hundred  or  more  of  them 
fall  senseless  to  the  earth  as  though  stricken  with 
death.  His  sermon  was  preached  at  the  eight  o'clock 
hour,  Sunday  morning.  Great  numbers  were  gather- 
ing to  the  service,  and  the  conditions  under  ordinary 
circumstances  would  have  been  unfavorable  to  marked 
effect.  His  sermon  was  only  twenty  minutes  in 
length;  the  text,  Gen.  xix,  17:  "Escape  for  thy  life." 
There  was  no  more  preaching  on  the  ground  that  day. 
Prayers  and  conversions  and  shouts  and  songs  were 
continued  all  over  the  camp  all  day  long. 

I  cite  another  example  of  "the  falling  exercise," 
as  it  was  called.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  a  sweeping  re- 
vival. Many  had  been  converted.  A  great  snow- 
storm made  the  attendance  on  this  occasion  small. 
Not  over  forty  persons  were  present.  The  previous 
night  five  hundred  were  in  the  church.  My  father,  the 
pastor,  was  talking  in  a  subdued  tone.  The  meeting 
was  very  quiet.  No  apparent  excitement  was  seen. 
All  at  once,  as  the  people  sat  listening  to  the  preacher, 
they  began  to  fall  over,  and  became  unconscious. 
Some  of  them  at  once  fell  to  the  floor.  Others  fell  on 
the  seat.  There  was  no  outcry,  no  shouting,  no  dem- 
onstration except  the  falling.  Only  three  maintained 
an  upright  position — my  father,  another,  and  myself. 
All  others  were  unconscious.  Some  of  them  remained 
thus  for  twenty-four  hours.  Some  became  conscious 
in  a  few  minutes.  Some  recovered  silently,  others 
awoke  shouting,  and  still  others  were  singing.  Some 
of  them  were  rigid.    Some  were  limp. 

V. 

In  my  childhood  days  my  father's  library  was  well 
supplied  with  Methodist  biography  and  history.  These 
to  me  were  very  fascinating.     They  kindled  in  me  a 


444     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

love  of  adventure  in  Christ's  work,  and  sent  me,  later, 
as  a  missionary  to  Oregon.  I  read  Wesley's  and  As- 
bury's  Journals  with  great  avidity.  As  I  read  Asbury's 
adventures  in  crossing  the  Alleghanies  in  West  Vir- 
ginia, and  the  Cumberland  Mountains  in  Tennessee, 
and  of  his  having  to  wait  at  Bean's  Station  for  his 
party  to  become  numerous  enough  to  make  the  cross- 
ing into  Kentucky  safe  from  Indian  assaults ;  of  his 
escapes  from  Indian  ambuscades  and  attacks ;  of  his 
perils  by  flood  and  field, — I  wondered  whether  such 
heroism  could  ever  again  be  repeated.  But  frontier 
life  has  been  quite  as  full  of  exciting  passages  since 
Asbury's  time  as  it  was  before.  In  my  fourteen  years' 
sojourn  in  Oregon  I  had  probably  as  many  intensely 
thrilling  adventures  and  experiences  as  he  had  in  his 
early  ministry  in  the  Wrest.  I  often  swam  rivers  on 
horseback.  I  have  been  pursued  and  fired  upon  by 
bandits.  I  have  had  stirring  passages  with  hostile 
Indians.  I  have  slept  under  God's  stars  in  the  open 
prairie,  with  saddlebags  for  my  pillow  and  my  faith- 
ful mule  as  my  only  companion. 

In  March,  1854,  in  company  with  Bishop  Simpson, 
I  slept  on  the  banks  of  the  Columbia  River,  under 
blankets,  our  camp  being  behind  an  immense  rock, 
on  a  cold  night,  a  rousing  fire  at  our  feet  to  keep  us 
warm  and  protect  us  from  ravenous  wolves  and  cou- 
gars. I  give  two  or  three  other  incidents  with  Bishop 
Simpson. 

We  ascended  the  Columbia  from  the  Cascades  to 
the  Dalles  in  a  large  Indian  canoe.  In  the  canoe  were 
nets  and  squaws  and  dogs,  innumerable  fleas,  and  gen- 
eral discomfort.  Two  drunken  white  men  were  in  the 
canoe.  Their  speech  was  coarse,  profane,  and  ob- 
scene. They  were  more  degraded  than  the  Indians 
and  their  dogs.  One  of  them  was  a  graduate  of  In- 
diana   Asbury    University.      Gently    and    kindly    the 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL  SERMON.  445 

bishop  spoke  to. him,  making  tender  reference  to  his 
mother  and  her  prayers.  We  parted  company  at  night 
at  Dog  River.  The  two  white  men  crossed  the  river. 
The  bishop  and  I  slept  in  the  Indian's  wigwam.  Ten 
years  and  a  half  afterward,  on  the  Upper  Columbia 
River,  I  met  the  Indiana  student  of  the  canoe  inci- 
dent. He  was  well-dressed  and  well-looking.  He  told 
me  he  was  then  a  married  man,  with  three  children, 
having  a  good  Christian  home,  a  fine  farm,  himself 
and  wife  Christians,  on  their  way  to  heaven.  He 
owed  it  all  to  the  timely  words  of  Bishop  Simpson. 

We  were  much  baffled  in  descending  the  Columbia 
by  strong  up-river  winds.  Repeated  attempts  to  go 
down  the  river  were  vain.  The  bishop  chided  my 
impatience,  remarking  that  it  was  doubtless  a  provi- 
dential detention  for  some  good  purpose.  It  was  on 
this  occasion  that  we  slept  on  the  river  bank.  Reach- 
ing Portland  we  found  that  the  steamer,  which  con- 
trary winds  had  prevented  us  from  getting  to  in  time, 
and  on  which  we  should  have  been  if  unhindered, 
had  blown  up  at  her  wharf,  instantly  killing  twenty- 
nine  of  the  thirty  passengers  on  board. 

On  another  occasion,  the  bishop  and  I  suddenly 
came  upon  a  cavalcade  of  several  hundred  Indians, 
all  well  mounted  and  armed.  The  Indians  were  hos- 
tile. Among  them  we  found  an  Indian  who  could 
talk  English.  Through  him  we  were  introduce:!  to 
the  other  Indians  as  Methodist  preachers,  and  we  were 
safe.  Tf  they  had  believed  us  Indian  agent  ,,  Indian 
traders,  or  United  States  military,  and  we  could  not 
have  convinced  them  to  the  contrary,  we  should  have 
been  killed. 

VI. 

In  the  golden  age  of  memory,  those  earlier  times 
have  a  rich  autumnal  tint.  If  too  free  a  rein  be  given 
to  fancy,  the  glamour  may  be  distorting  and  mislead 


446     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

ing.  There  were  many  excellencies  then.  There 
were  also  serious  defects.  In  many  ways  the  present 
period  shows  a  marked  superiority  over  the  former. 

The  refinement  of  to-day  puts  to  blush  the  ruder 
coarseness  of  the  past.  The  impure  jest,  the  profane 
word,  the  seclusion  and  inferior  lot  assigned  to 
woman,  the  lack  of  comfort  in  hospitals  and  infirm- 
aries, the  brutal  treatment  of  the  insane,  idiots,  and 
paupers,  were  common  to  that  earlier  period. 

Political  partisanism  was  harsh.  Public  manners 
were  coarse.  Drunkenness  was  open  and  shameless. 
Ignorance  and  prejudice  were  conspicuous  in  many 
ways,  in  comparison  with  the  present  more  general 
diffusion  of  education.  All  these  prove  that  the  former 
times  were  not  better  than  the  present.  They  were 
much  worse. 

Fifty  years  ago  I  conducted  a  funeral  service.  The 
deceased  was  a  very  aged  lady.  Twelve  children,  fifty 
grandchildren,  and  twelve  great-grandchildren — in 
all,  seventy-four  descendants  of  the  deceased — were 
present.  After  the  burial,  all  the  family,  and  other 
relatives  and  guests,  repaired  to  the  mansion  and 
dined.  Costly  viands  tempted  the  appetite  through 
eight  courses.  Wines  and  all  the  various  kinds  of 
distilled  liquors  were  on  the  sideboard. 

The  dwellings  and  churches  of  the  fathers  were 
severely  plain  and  rude.  Woman  was  accorded  less 
respect  and  freedom  than  now.  Fewer  occupations 
were  open  to  her  for  earning  a  living.  In  the  home, 
on  public  occasions,  on  the  rostrum,  in  legislatures 
and  courts,  and  in  general  intercourse,  there  was  less 
of  refinement  than  now.  The  schools  and  colleges 
were  less  advanced  in  grade  than  at  present.  As  to 
the  comforts  and  luxuries  and  refinements  of  life,  in 
all  lines,  the  present  is  far  in  advance  of  the  former 
period. 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL  SERMON.  447 

Members  and  ministers  of  the  different  Churches, 
our  own  included,  bought  and  sold  slaves,  and  held 
them  for  gain.  More,  they  defended  slavery  from  the 
Bible.  But  for  the  sturdy  resistance  which  conscien- 
tious Abolitionists  in  our  Church,  lay  and  ministerial, 
made  to  the  encroachments  of  the  slave-power,  slavery 
would  have  captured  and  dominated  all  the  States  and 
Territories  of  the  Republic.  The  fidelity  and  firmness 
of  our  fathers  of  half  a  century  ago,  and  more,  caused 
the  Church  secession  of  1845.  From  that  came,  six- 
teen years  later,  the  Rebellion  of  1861,  and  so  the 
Nation  was  saved  to  liberty.  In  Christian  homes  was 
the  sideboard,  with  intoxicating  beverages.  Treating 
at  elections  and  at  raisings  was  prevalent.  The  license 
system  tolerated  and  protected  the  drink-traffic.  It 
would  be  difficult  to-day  to  find  any  Church  in  the 
Nation  with  moral  hardihood  enough  to  tolerate  the 
traffic.  All  intelligent  Christians  regard  the  licensing 
and  taxing  of  the  system  as  of  the  nature  of  a  bribe 
to  induce  compliance  with  the  infernal  traffic,  and  as 
a  moral  complicity  with  the  sin.  Taxing  the  drink- 
traffic,  as  in  Ohio,  is  a  clever  dodge  of  the  politicians 
working  in  the  interests,  and  possibly  in  the  pay,  of 
the  venders  and  manufacturers  of  intoxicants.  Against 
this  form  of  complicity  with  the  infernal  business,  as 
well  as  that  of  the  license  system,  our  Discipline  very 
properly  levels  its  prohibition. 

In  resolute,  unflinching  hostility  to  the  drink- 
habit  and  the  drink-traffic,  and  in  favor  of  the  total 
prohibition  of  both,  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
has  led  the  way ;  and  as  surely  as  that  God  lives,  and 
right  is  stronger  than  wrong,  the  American  saloon  will 
become  a  thing  of  the  past.  As  surely  as  slavery  has 
disappeared  from  our  Nation,  so  surely  will  the  deadly, 
Satanic  liquor-traffic  disappear.  Political  parties  will 
be  smashed,  and  slates  will  be  broken,  and  contention 


448      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

and  bloodshed  may  be  seen — aye,  even  riot  and  war 
may  precede  that  victory;  but  come  it  will; 

"For  right  is  right,  since  God  is  God, 
And  right  the  day  must  win; 
To  doubt  would  be  disloyalty, 
To  falter  would  be  sin." 

In  large  measure  the  honor  of  the  grand  achieve- 
ment will  be  given  to  our  beloved  Church.  May 
the  Lord  hasten  the  day  of  its  utter  overthrow!  How 
I  would  like  to  witness  its  annihilation,  and  to  join 
in  the  bannered  procession  which  shall  celebrate  the 
abolition  of  the  American  saloon! 

Zealous  as  were  many  of  our  fathers  in  extend- 
ing religion,  marked  improvement  has  come,  both  as 
to  modes  of  working  and  economy  of  forces,  and  also 
as  to  the  ratio  of  progress  made.  Persons  yet  living 
can  remember  when  there  was  no  regular,  liberal, 
systematic  support  of  missions  in  our  Church;  when 
Liberia  and  South  America  were  our  only  foreign  mis- 
sions; when  we  had  no  Church  Extension  Society; 
when  there  were  no  organized,  effective,  educational 
movements,  no  Christian  libraries  nor  Christian  liter- 
ature worth  the  name;  when  our  Church  journalism 
was  weak  and  scantily  patronized;  when  our  Book 
Concerns  were  small  and  feeble;  when  our  Church 
edifices  were  plain  and  unattractive;  when  our  semi- 
naries, colleges,  and  universities  were  unendowed  and 
weakly;  when  the  support  of  our  effective  ministers 
was  scanty  and  precarious,  and  when  the  support  of 
our  superannuates  was  still  more  stinted  and  inade- 
quate; when  our  statistics  were  meager  and  imperfect. 
It  was  not  until  the  General  Conference  of  1856  that 
our  statistics  included  the  number  of  deaths  and  of 
baptisms  of  infants  and  adults;  the  number  and  value 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL   SERMON.  449 

of  churches  and  parsonages;  and  the  contributions 
for  missions  from  Sunday-schools,  and  other  benevo- 
lent collections  and  doings  of  our  Church.  In  their 
insertion  into  our  Discipline  I  took  a  leading  part. 

VII. 

In  all  these,  and  many  other  things,  wonderful 
changes  have  come.    I  cite  a  few  examples : 

Forty-two  years  ago,  I  was  stationed  in  Wilkes- 
barre,  Penn.,  then  and  now  one  of  the  wealthiest  of 
our  Methodist  charges.  I  was  pastor  of  the  only 
Methodist  Church  in  that  borough.  Since  then  four 
strong  Churches  have  swarmed  from  the  old  hive, 
each  of  them  having  better  churches  and  parsonages 
than  mine  were  when  I  went  to  that  charge.  My 
allowance  was  four  hundred  dollars,  the  highest  salary 
paid  within  the  Conference.  Our  church,  erected  dur- 
ing my  incumbency,  was  a  brick  structure,  costing  ten 
thousand  dollars.  It  was  plain  and  unpretentious. 
The  parsonage  was  worth  perhaps  six  hundred  or 
eight  hundred  dollars. 

After  settling  these  four  daughters  in  their  sev- 
eral Church  homes,  the  mother  Church,  which  I 
served,  has  an  elegant  edifice,  of  modern  appointments, 
costing,  say,  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars. 
The  pastor  lives  in  a  fine  parsonage,  costing,  say, 
fifteen  thousand  dollars,  on  a  salary  of  three  thousand 
five  hundred  dollars.  Prior  to  the  Wilkesbarre  pas- 
torate was  that  of  Binghamton,  N.  Y.  The  church 
in  that  place  was  a  square,  unsightly  object,  called 
"The  Eel-pot."  My  allowance  was  three  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars.  Here  is  noted  a  like  advance,  as  in  the 
former  case. 

These  are  only  samples.  In  the  march  of  civ- 
29 


450      SIXTY- ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

ilization  the  whole  country  has  advanced  with  giant 
strides.  Our  Church  has  kept  pace  with  the  material 
and  intellectual  progress.    Other  improvements  await. 

"Not  in  vain  the  distance  beacons.     Forward,  forward  let  us 

range ! 
I,et  the  great  world  spin  forever  down  the  ringing  grooves 

of  change. 
Through   the    shadow   of   the    globe    we    sweep    into    the 

younger  day; 
Better  fifty  years  of  Europe  than  a  cycle  of  Cathay." 

VIII. 

Of  the  five  years  of  service  I  put  into  the  recon- 
struction of  our  Church  in  the  South  I  may  not 
speak  in  detail.  It  was  harder  than  the  Oregon  work, 
and  quite  as  perilous.  I  was  fired  upon  in  Knoxville 
before  I  had  been  there  a  month.  I  was  threatened 
by  Ku-klux  and  conspired  against  by  ex-rebels. 
Under  the  severe  pressure,  my  health  completely  gave 
way,  compelling  a  suspension  of  my  work  there,  and 
my  temporary  retirement  into  the  less  arduous  duties 
of  United  States  consul  in  Kingston,  Jamaica. 

In  company  with  Bishop  D.  W.  Clark  and  Dr. 
Adam  Poe,  I  was  present  at  the  organization  of  the 
Holston  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  in  June,  1865.  I  also  accompanied  them  to 
Atlanta,  Ga.,  assisting  in  reorganizing  and  arranging 
our  work  there.  I  have  never  placed  as  high  an  esti- 
mate upon  my  service  in  the  South  as  upon  that  in 
Oregon.  I  hope  God  will  make  all  he  can  out  of  it. 
Fruitless  my  labors  there  were  not,  yet  I  should  like 
to  have  scored  a  larger,  mightier  success. 

IX. 

The  best  work  of  my  life  was  in  Oregon.  From 
185 1  to  1865 — fourteen  years — I  served  the  Church 
as  presiding  elder  and  editor,  helping  to  lay,  in  that 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL   SERMON.  451 

then  most  distant  of  our  Territories,  the  foundations 
of  eivil,  social,  and  religious  liberty. 

Before  and  after  Oregon  was  organized  into  an 
Annual  Conference,  1  wrought  to  extend  our  work 
in  that  held.  It  was  a  foreign  mission  when  I  went. 
Before  its  organization  as  a  regular  Annual  Confer- 
ence, I  was  organizing  circuits  and  placing  mission- 
aries upon  them,  and  I  was  doing  evangelistic  work. 
One  summer  I  attended  seven  camp-meetings  in  as 
many  successive  weeks.  In  these  seven  weeks  myself 
and  wife  slept  in  a  house  but  one  night,  and  in  them 
all  we  had  no  rain.  In  each  of  them  we  had  precious 
revivals.  At  the  camp-meeting  in  the  forks  of  the 
Santiam,  one  of  the  seven,  I  preached  a  doctrinal  ser- 
mon on  baptism,  of  three  and  a  half  hours  in  length. 
Remarkable  as  it  may  seem,  the  hearers  all  staid  until 
the  close.  After  Oregon  was  organized  as  a  part  of 
our  regular  domestic  work,  I  was  appointed  the  first 
presiding  elder.  I  was  also  the  first  editor  and  pub- 
lisher of  the  Pacific  Christian  Advocate,  the  first  and 
only  Methodist  journal  ever  issued  in  Oregon.  In 
1854  I  was  elected  to  the  presidency  of  the  Oregon 
Conference,  a  position  I  held  from  Wednesday  until 
Sunday  afternoon,  when  Bishop  Simpson  reached  the 
seat  of  the  Conference.  I  found  Oregon  a  sparsely- 
settled  wilderness.  I  left  it  a  blooming,  beautiful 
garden.  It  has  since  become  far  more  attractive  and 
productive  than  any  other  equal  area  of  Methodism 
in  any  part  of  the  world  within  my  knowledge.  Allow 
a  comparison.  When,  forty  years  ago,  I  went  to  Ore- 
gon, we  had  one  district.  There  were  three  churches, 
worth,  say,  $15,000;  and  two  parsonages,  worth,  say, 
$5,000.  There  were  fifteen  traveling  and  seventeen 
local  preachers,  and  there  were  four  hundred  members. 
The  figures  which  show  the  marvelous  result  seem 
incredible.     Within   the  limits  of  the  field   I   literally 


452      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK*. 

traversed,  twoscore  years  ago,  there  are  4  Annual  Con- 
ferences, 195  traveling  and  179  local  preachers,  19,000 
members,  223  churches,  worth  $885,000,  and  109  par- 
sonages, worth  $176,000,  equaling  $1,061,000  as  the 
value  of  our  church  property. 

There  are  to-day  fifteen  times  as  many  traveling 
preachers,  ten  times  as  many  local  preachers,  forty- 
seven  and  one-half  times  as  many  members,  seventy- 
four  times  as  many  churches,  and  fifty-four  times  as 
many  parsonages.  The  value  of  the  church  and  par- 
sonage property  has  increased  forty-fold.  Consider 
another  aspect  of  this  amazing  growth. 

It  is  furnished  by  later  statistics,  and  these  in- 
clude the  following  facts  as  to  Oregon  alone,  and 
in  relation,  also,  to  the  statistics  of  four  other  lead- 
ing denominations  of  Oregon: 


Societies,  Methodist,  .    .    . 

107 

211- 

—Members,  . 

.    .    .    .    10,050 

Baptist,    .    .    .    . 

<< 

• 

•   5,043 

"          Presbyterian, .    . 

70 

<< 

•   3.575 

"          Episcopalian,     . 

32 

« 

.   1,600 

"          Congregational, 

29 

«« 

.   1,609 

237 

11,827 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  in  Oregon,  alone,  there  are 
almost  as  many  Methodist  societies  and  members,  as 
in  the  other  four  leading  Churches,  altogether. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  Pacific  Christian  Advocate, 
now  in  its  thirty-seventh  volume.  You  will  be  inter- 
ested to  learn  of  its  genesis  and  early  history. 

The  publishing  of  a  weekly  religious  paper  in 
connection  with  our  work  in  Oregon  was  frequently 
discussed  by  the  leading  ministers  and  laymen — nota- 
bly by  J.  R.  Robb  and  Ex-Governor  Abernethy, 
wholesale  merchants  and  lumber-dealers  in  Oregon 
City,  and  by  Alexander  Abernethy,  of  Oak  Point. 
Several  meetings  for  consultation  were  held  at  Ore- 
gon City,  Salem,  and  Portland.    These  resulted  in  the 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL   SERMON.  453 

creation  of  a  joint-stock  company,  with  a  subscription 
of  $3,500,  the  supposed  cost  of  the  necessary  outfit. 

The  subscribers  to  the  stock,  as  I  now  recall  them, 
were  James  R.  Robb,  Alexander  Abernethy,  laymen; 
and  Revs.  C.  S.  Kingsley,  Alvin^  F.  Waller,  Josiah 
L.  Parrish,  Thomas  H.  Pearne,  and  perhaps,  also, 
Gustavus  and  Harvey  K.  Hines,  and  others;  but  of 
these  last  names  I  can  not  be  certain. 

I  was  selected  editor  of  the  projected  paper,  and 
was  instructed  to  order  the  necessary  office  fixtures 
and  material.  Subsequently  the  joint-stock  company 
dissolved,  and  I  became  sole  proprietor,  publisher,  and 
editor  of  the  paper. 

The  first  number  of  the  Advocate  was  issued  in 
Salem,  early  in  the  summer  of  1855. 

There  was  then  no  provision  of  the  Discipline 
by  which  a  member  of  an  Annual  Conference  could 
be  appointed  to  the  conduct  of  an  unofficial  religious 
paper.  I  was  therefore  appointed  agent  of  the  Willa- 
mette University,  a  nominal  appointment,  to  enable 
me  also  to  conduct  the  paper,  and  still  remain  a  mem- 
ber of  Conference. 

Although  the  necessary  stock  was  subscribed,  the 
payments  were  tardy.  I  at  last  assumed  the  respon- 
sibility of  ordering  an  office  and  a  six  months'  supply 
of  paper.  A  relative  of  mine,  Francis  Hall,  Esq.,  pub- 
lisher of  the  New  York  Commercial  Advertiser,  selected 
and  forwarded  the  fixtures  and  material  for  the  new 
paper.  As  these  had  to  be  shipped  via  Cape  Horn, 
it  was  nearly  six  months  from  the  time  of  ordering 
them  before  we  received  them. 

At  the  ensuing  Annual  Conference  session  of  1855, 
I  was  elected  a  co-delegate  to  the  General  Conference, 
which  met  in  Indianapolis,  May,  1856,  with  the  late 
Rev.  William  Roberts,  formerly  a  superintendent  of 
Methodist  missions  in  California  and  Oregon. 


454     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

The  General  Conference  directed  the  New  York 
Book  Agents  to  purchase  the  plant  of  the  Pacific 
Christian  Advocate,  at  a  cost  not  to  exceed  $3,500,  and 
continue  the  publication  of  the  Pacific  Christian  Advo- 
cate in  Oregon.  I#\vas  elected  editor  of  the  paper  in 
1856,  by  the  General  Conference,  and  re-elected  in 
i860.  I  was  urged  by  many  laymen  to  be  a  candidate 
in  1864,  and  my  Conference  urged  it  upon  me  to  con- 
tinue in  the  editorship;  but  I  declined. 

The  first  size  of  the  paper  was  a  mistake.  It  was 
a  large  blanket  sheet  of  four  pages.  It  was  unwieldy, 
inconvenient,  and  unattractive  in  size  and  form.  The 
first  issue  was  badly  printed,  and  on  this  account  it 
was  more  unattractive.  Yet  it  succeeded.  The  pub- 
lishers have  done  well  to  bring  it  into  more  portable 
and  compendious  form  for  reading  and  for  preser- 
vation. • 

There  was  some  diversity  of  view  as  to  the  proper 
location  of  the  office.  Some  thought  Oregon  City 
the  better  place,  as  it  was  between  Salem  and  Port- 
land. Portland  was  vigorously  urged,  and  really  it 
should  have  been  located  there  at  the  start,  as  it  was 
after  several  months'  publication  in  Salem,  then  the 
capital  of  the  Territory,  and  afterward  of  the  State. 
The  Salem  office  of  publication  was  a  small,  one-story, 
unpainted  building,  where  cases,  press,  imposing- 
stone,  and  paper  supply,  were  very  inconveniently 
huddled  together. 

My  sanctum  was  a  small  room  eight  or  ten  feet 
square.  When  letters,  editorials,  and  contributions 
got  promiscuously  piled  in  heaps  on  my  table,  the  con- 
fusion was  bewildering.  It  was  often  the  case  that 
answers  to  important  letters  were  delayed,  and  edi- 
torials were  "lost  to  sight,  and  yet  to  memory  dear." 

The  exact  date  when  the  first  number  was  issued 
in  Salem  I  can  not  now  give.     An  amusing  incident 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL   SERMON.  455 

occurred  in  that  Salem  office,  the  recital  of  which  will 
perhaps  be  enjoyed. 

A  man  who  had  crossed  the  Plains  on  foot,  an 
enthusiastic  reformer  as  to  the  Indian  policy,  came 
into  the  office.  He  inquired  of  me  where  he  could 
find  Rev.  Mr.  Pearne,  the  editor  of  that  paper,  as  he 
greatly  desired  to  see  him.    I  said: 

"Look  at  me,  and  you  will  see  the  man  who  bears 
that  name." 

"What!"  said  he,  "vou  Mr.  Pearne?  It  can 
not  be!" 

"Why  can  not  it  be?"  said  I. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "ever  since  I  was  a  boy  I  have 
been  reading  articles  written  in  Church  papers  by  you, 
and  I  expected  to  see  a  man  of  threescore  years  at 
least,  wrinkled,  bowed,  and  tottering." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "Pearne  is  the  name  I  have  always 
borne.  I  came  honorably  by  it.  I  am  not  ashamed 
of  it.  I  am  glad  I  favorably  disappoint  you  as  to  my 
age;  and  really,  I  never  expect  to  get  old  and  wrinkled 
and  bowed." 

It  was  somewhat  difficult  to  fix  upon  a  suitable 
name  for  the  new  paper.  The  following  names  were 
proposed:  North  Pacific  Christian  Herald,  The  Pa- 
cific, The  Pacific  Methodist,  Oregon  Christian  Advo- 
cate, Oregon  Banner,  Oregon  Banner  and  Messenger. 
The  first  and  last  names  were  entirely  too  long.  The 
Congregationalists  in  San  Francisco  were  issuing  a 
paper  bearing  the  name,  The  Pacific;  for  that  reason 
that  name  was  laid  aside.  The  Pacific  Methodist  was 
next  considered.  It  was  suggested  that  an  aggressive 
Methodist,  or  a  zealous  Methodist,  or  a  shouting 
Methodist  would  be  in  order;  but  scarcely  a  Methodist 
of  pacific  characteristics. 

The  California  Christian  Advocate  was  already 
under  full   movement,  with   Rev.  S.   D.   Simonds   as 


456     SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

editor,  and  to  have  an  Oregon  Christian  Advocate 
would  make  it  too  local.  The  Oregon  Banner,  and 
the  Oregon  Banner  and  Messenger  were  soon  dis- 
missed. The  name  Oregon  Christian  Advocate  was 
again  considered.  Rev.  Alvin  F.  Waller,  as  I  now 
recollect,  suggested  the  name,  Pacific  Christian  Advo- 
cate. It  at  once  struck  all  with  favor,  and  it  was 
unanimously  adopted.  I  am  glad  to  credit  this  sug- 
gestion to  that  grand  and  true  man,  Rev.  Mr.  Waller. 
He  left  the  impress  of  his  strong  personality  upon 
Oregon  as  perhaps  few  others  have  done.  Subsequent 
events  have  fully  vindicated  the  wisdom  of  the  selec- 
tion. It  preserves  the  family  patronymic,  Christian 
Advocate.  The  word  Pacific  sufficiently  locates  the 
patronizing  territory  of  its  circulation.  If  the  name 
Oregon  Christian  Advocate  had  been  selected,  when 
Washington  and  Idaho  became  contiguous  Terri- 
tories, now  States,  the  name  would  have  been  offens- 
ively exclusive. 

It  was  no  small  undertaking  to  publish  such  a 
paper  in  Salem — a  hamlet,  then,  of  perhaps  six  hun- 
•dred  souls.  A  semi-monthly  steamer  brought  us  all 
the  news  from  the  outside  world.  We  had  to  depend 
upon  home  talent  and  upon  indomitable  energy  and 
industry  to  make  a  current,  readable  paper.  I  had 
heard  of  Bishop  Morris's  first  editorship  of  the  West- 
ern Christian  Advocate,  when  he  was  compelled  to 
write  his  own  correspondence  and  communications 
from  imaginary  places  and  with  fictitious  signatures, 
and  also  write  his  own  editorial  matter  as  well.  I 
copied  his  example,  doing  a  larger  share  of  such  work. 

There  was  a  remarkable  improvement  in  the  facili- 
ties Portland  afforded  for  news,  and  other  matter  for 
our  columns.  There  was  also  in  Portland,  a  larger 
and  better  class  of  advertisers.  I  found  it  much  easier 
to  make  a  paper  in  Portland  than  I  did  in  Salem. 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL    SERMON.  457 

But  even  under  the  more  favorable  conditions  in 
Portland,  it  was  at  the  same  time,  drudgery  and  severe 
toil,  successfully  to  conduct  the  Pacific  Christian  Ad- 
vocate.    Probably  few,  if  any  editors  of  our  Church 
papers  ever  had  a  berth  so  hard,  or  so  poorly  com- 
pensated as  was  ours  in  the  earlier  years  of  my  edi- 
torial life.     I   had  no   assistants,   because   there   was 
nothing  from  which  to  pay  them;  no  clerks,  no  book- 
keeper, no  typewriter;  scarcely  an  errand-boy.     I  did 
all  the  editing  of  the  paper,  wrote  all  the  editorial 
matter,   conducted   all   the   business   correspondence, 
kept  all  the  accounts,  hired  and  paid  all  the  hands, 
mailed  all  the  papers,  and,  with  my  own  hands,  di- 
rected   all    the    papers,    fifteen    hundred    in    number. 
When  all  this  is  considered,  as  I  look  back  over  it, 
it  seems  simply  to  have  been  impossible  that  I  could 
accomplish  so  many  things  with  anything  like  pass- 
able efiiciency  or  correctness.     But  still  more  signifi- 
cant, and  well-nigh  incredible,  is  it,  that  for  the  first 
few  years  the  compensation  was  so  small.    My  salary, 
in  the  beginning,  was  only  seven  hundred  dollars  a 
year.     For  this  very  inconsiderable  compensation  I 
did  work  fairly  worth  two  thousand  dollars  a  year. 
Afterwards,  it  was  increased  to  one  thousand  dollars 
a  year,  and  a  mailing  clerk  was  allowed  me.    It  was  a 
very  hard  struggle  to  keep  the  concern  afloat,   and 
avoid  running  it  into  hopeless  insolvency.    I  borrowed 
and  advanced  money  until,  at  one  time,  the  Advocate 
owed  me  four  thousand  dollars. 

I  give  two  incidents  of  my  editorial  life  in  Port- 
land. In  the  first,  the  editor  was  hoaxed.  A  young 
man  came  over  to  me  from  Puget  Sound,  to  be  bap- 
tized by  me,  as  the  minister  in  his  circuit  was  unor- 
dained,  and  could  not  baptize  him.  He  was  a  bright 
lad,  and  apparently  sincere.  He  came  to  me  well  rec- 
ommended.   I  baptized  him.    He  went  into  the  Ump- 


45$      SIXTV-ONE    I'EARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

qua  Valley,  in  Southern  Oregon,  to  attend  school. 
A  few  weeks  later  I  received  a  letter  from  a  gentleman 
I  knew  there,  a  class-leader,  stating  that  this  lad  in 
felling  a  tree  had  been  suddenly  killed  by  the  tree 
falling  upon  him.  The  letter  stated  the  sincere  and 
earnest  grief  of  the  people  over  the  young  man's  un- 
timely and  shocking  death.  The  letter  requested  that 
the  name  should  not  appear.  I  published  the  incident, 
withholding  the  name,  as  requested.  After  the  paper 
containing  the  alleged  incident  reached  the  Umpqua 
Valley,  the  class-leader  informed  me  that  I  was  the 
victim  of  a  cruel  hoax,  as  no  such  event  had  occurred 
there.  Sending  back  the  copy  of  the  letter  I  had  pub- 
lished, to  this  class-leader,  I  found  that  my  young  neo- 
phyte had  practiced  this  deception  and  forged  the 
name  of  the  class-leader  to  the  untrue  story.  His  ob- 
ject was  notoriety.    He  gained  it. 

In  the  other  incident,  I  fooled  a  bucking  horse. 
He  jumped  stiff-legged  and  tried  to  unhorse  me.  My 
hat  went  one  way  and  my  spectacles  another.  I 
spurred  him,  and  rode  bareheaded  around  the  square 
to  the  no  small  diversion  of  gaping  crowds.  Then  re- 
turning to  the  stable,  my  hat  and  spectacles  were  re- 
covered, and  I  made  the  trip  undertaken. 

Everything  occurring  in  those  long-gone  days  is 
as  fresh  and  vivid  as  though  but  of  yesterday.  How  I 
recall  the  forms  and  characters  of  the  living  actors 
contemporary  with  me  in  laying  the  foundations  of 
many  generations  in  Oregon, — the  venerable  David 
Leslie,  the  patriarch  of  them  all;  Waller,  the  typ- 
ical itinerant;  C.  S.  Kingsley,  the  versatile  teacher, 
preacher,  business  man;  Gustavus,  Harvey  K.,  and 
Joseph  Hines,  who  have  made  their  imperishable  im- 
press upon  that  land  and  its  dwellers;  the  suave,  dig- 
nified, elegant,  and  eloquent  William  Roberts;  Nehe- 
miah  Doane,  L.  T.  Woodward;  the  saintly  man  whom 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL   SERMON.  459 

everybody  loved,  James  II.  Wilbur;  Clinton  and  Al- 
bert Kelly;  Francis  S.  Hoyt,  ten  years  president  of 
Willamette  University;  J.  L.  Parrish,  C.  O.  Hosford, 
William  Helm,  Isaac  Dillon,  John  F.  De  Vorc,  John 
W.  Miller,  John  Flynn,  John  Spencer,  the  Royals  of 
three  generations.  Glorious  men!  Most  of  them  have 
already  ascended  to  their  crowning.  Erelong  their 
few  survivors  will  rejoin  them. 

Portland  is  now  a  city  of  seventy  thousand.  When 
I  first  saw  it,  it  was  a  hamlet  of  perhaps  five  or  six 
hundred  people,  in  the  midst  of  a  dense  fir  forest. 
For  years  the  only  streets  practicable  for  drays,  on 
account  of  stumps  of  trees,  were  First  and  Second 
Streets,  running  parallel  with  the  river.  Portland 
Academy  stood  in  the  midst  of  timber.  I  assisted  Rev. 
James  H.  Wilbur  in  felling  stately  fir-trees  by  boring 
into  them  transversely,  and  firing  the  intersecting 
apertures.  The  trees  were  so  resinous,  that  those  fires 
so  kindled  would  burn  the  trunk  through,  and  fell 
the  tree  as  surely  as  the  woodman's  ax  could. 

X. 

Many  changes  have  come  to  Methodism  in  the 
last  fifty  years.  Some  of  them  were  important,  and 
some  comparatively  unimportant.     I  note  a  few: 

The  preaching  of  the  earlier  period  was  of  the 
law  and  its  demands,  rather  than  of  the  gospel.  The 
guilt  and  danger  of  sinners  were  earnestly  enforced. 
After  this,  usually  in  the  same  sermon,  but  not  always, 
the  remedy  was  offered.  The  sermons  and  exhorta- 
tions were  "not  with  enticing  words  of  man's  wisdom;' 
but  with  plain,  convincing,  direct  speech,  and  "in  the 
demonstration  of  the  Spirit."  They  were  largely  doc- 
trinal and  controversial.  They  were  distinctively  Ar- 
menian. In  later  years,  they  are  more  didactic  and 
ethical.     As  a  rule,  the  sermons  of  the  earlier  times 


460     SIXTY-ONE   YEARS  OF  ITINERANT  WORK. 

were  long.  The  hearers  seemed  to  expect  them  to 
be  somewhat  long.  Their  length  was  rarely  criti- 
cised, unless  they  extended  considerably  beyond  the 
usual  regulation  hour.  The  hymns  were  read,  and 
then  lined.     The  prayers  were  long. 

.Before  my  ministry  began,  and  for  a  few  years 
thereafter,  it  was  not  unusual  for  some  matronly  and 
gifted  woman  to  follow  the  sermon  with  a  rousing 
exhortation.  This  fact  occasioned  but  little  surprise, 
as  the  practice,  if  an  innovation,  would  have  caused; 
hence  I  conclude  the  usage  may  have  had  long  and 
general  precedent.  Some  of  these  exhortations  by  fe- 
males produced  a  profound  and  overwhelming  im- 
pression. One  I  recall  was  at  a  quarterly-meeting. 
After  an  effective,  forceful  sermon  by  Rev.  Charles 
Giles,  the  presiding  elder,  the  Widow  Blair,  his  sister, 
asked  leave  to  offer  a  few  words.  Her  addition  was 
timely  and  able.  On  another  occasion,  during  a  re- 
vival in  Paris,  N.  Y.,  a  lady  arose,  on  the  close  of  my 
father's  sermon,  and  made  an  earnest  exhortation  to 
the  people  to  come  to  Christ.  Many  came  forward 
and  were  converted,  and  the  revival  received  a  power- 
ful impetus. 

In  those  earlier  days  there  were  some  men  of 
marked  power;  yet  the  rank  and  file  of  the  early 
Methodist  preachers  were  not  men  of  eminent  genius 
nor  of  brilliant  abilities.  While  some  of  them  were 
scholarly  and  learned,  the  most  of  them  were  com- 
paratively unlearned.  The  Rev.  George  Gary,  of 
whom  I  have  already  spoken,  was  almost  entirely  un- 
learned when,  in  his  boyhood,  his  ministry  began. 
He  learned  grammar  on  horseback  as  he  rode  his 
earlier  circuits,  yet  no  skilled  grammarian  could  con- 
struct sentences  more  correctly  than  he. 

The  Arminian  doctrines  of  free-will,  universal 
atonement,  and  free  grace,  equally  for  all  men,  ap- 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL   SERMON.  46 1 

pealed  to  the  average  American  mind  as  more  equi- 
table and  equal  than  the  limited  atonement  and  the 
sovereign  decrees  of  Calvinism.  In  these  stirring 
times  of  higher  criticism  and  dissent  and  doctrinal  re- 
vision, it  is  a  gratifying  fact,  and  one  full  of  the  most 
encouraging  promise,  that  there  has  never  been  any 
considerable  deviation  from  sound  doctrine  among  the 
millions  of  Methodists  in  the  last  hundred  and  fifty 
years.  Now  and  then  a  man  like  Priestley,  or  Thomas 
Paine,  or  Robert  Collyer,  or  H.  W.  Thomas  has  de- 
scribed a  theological  tangent  or  turned  away  from 
Scriptural  teachings  about  Jesus  as  the  Divine  Re- 
deemer; but  such  sporadic  deviations  have  never 
touched  the  heart  of  the  Church,  which  has  been  as 
true  to  sound  doctrine  as  the  needle  to  the  pole  and 
the  flower  to  the  sun. 

A  stronger  body  of  Methodist  preachers  fills  the 
pulpits  of  Methodism  to-day  than  those  of  any  former 
period  of  which  I  have  had  knowledge.  I  believe 
them  equally  as  consecrated  and  spiritual  as  the  fathers 
were,  with  less  of  the  frontiersman  in  garb  and  speech, 
and  with  more  of  refinement  and  culture  and  intelli- 
gence. They  are  systematic,  learned,  and  successful. 
The  change  from  the  circuit  system  to  that  of  stations 
has  come  within  the  last  half-century.  It  has  greatly 
modified  the  character  and  form  of  our  ministerial 
training.  The  circuit  plan  was  the  school  in  which 
the  younger  preachers  were  trained  under  the  eye  and 
hand  of  the  senior  colleague,  and  also  while  trainer 
and  trained  were  both  in  the  work.  The  advantage 
of  this  plan,  in  our  early  stage  of  evolution,  was  un- 
doubtedly great.  When  the  circuit  system  ceased, 
theological  schools  became  a  necessity.  Their  eminent 
usefulness  can  not  be  questioned.  Our  itinerant  sys- 
tem requires  annually,  say,  eight  hundred  recruits  of 
ministers,   and    but    for   the   theological    schools,    we 


462      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

would  be  unable  to  keep  the  ranks  full  by  accessions 
of  trained  men  for  our  work.  With  the  introduction  of 
the  railway,  travel  by  buggy  and  on  horseback  ceased. 
Thus  the  time-honored  hospitality  of  the  Methodist 
home  to  the  travel-worn  itinerant  was  no  longer 
needed  nor  practicable.  In  large  measure  the  im- 
proving, molding  influence  of  the  ministerial  guest 
upon  the  children  was  wanting. 

From  the  period  of  the  meeting-house,  and  the 
chapel,  as  then  called,  humble  and  rude,  and  severely 
plain  and  cheap,  we  have  passed  quite  over  into  that 
of  costly,  elegant,  beautiful  churches,  challenging  the 
admiration  of  all  persons  of  refined  taste.  In  these 
magnificent  churches  as  devout  and  earnest  Chris- 
tians worship  God  as  ever  their  rude  forefathers  were, 
and  as  effective  workers  and  planners,  and  as  liberal 
givers  for  Christ  as  ever  bore  the  honored  name  of 
Methodist. 

Lay  delegation  has  come  within  the  last  twenty 
years.  I  always  favored  it.  One  of  the  circular  reso- 
lutions on  that  subject,  which  went  the  round  of  the 
Conferences,  and  which  received  many  votes,  was  the 
Oregon  resolution,  introduced  by  me  into  the  Oregon 
Conference  in  1859.  Lay  delegation  works  well.  Per- 
haps two  houses  will  give  more  equality  or  parity  of 
the  orders. 

One  of  the  most  marked  changes  has  come  in  the 
economy  of  forces,  by  the  systematic,  organized,  con- 
nectional  movements  of  these  times.  These  mark 
the  transition  and  contrasts  from  the  irregular  to  the 
ordered,  from  the  partial  to  the  general,  from  the  oc- 
casional to  the  constant,  steady  giving  and  doing; 
from  the  solicitation  and  contribution  and  adminis- 
tration of  the  few,  for  great  and  good  objects,  to  regu- 
lar, organized,  systematic  giving  and  doing  for  Christ 
on  a  large  scale,  with  the  breadth  of  a  continent  for 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL   SERMON,  463 

its  field.  Take,  for  example,  the  Church  Extension 
Board,  which  in  twenty-five  years  has  received  and 
disbursed  $4,000,000,  aided  in  the  erection  of  7,500 
churches,  and  which  has  $1,500,000  of  active  capital 
as  a  loan  fund  to  perpetuate  its  mission  of  blessing. 
The  value  of  the  churches  aided  is  $99,500,000,  a  gain 
of  12,000  churches  aided,  and  of  net  value  of  churches, 
$75,000,000. 

This  is  only  a  sample  of  Christian  giving  and  doing 
in  one  line.  There  arc  many.  We  raised  last  year,  for 
missions  alone,  Home  and  Foreign,  in  our  three  Con- 
nectional  Missionary  Societies,  over  $1,500,000;  Board 
of  Church  Extension,  $300,000;  Freedmen's  Aid  and 
Southern  Education  Society,  $322,632 — increase  of  re- 
ceipts over  the  former  year,  $55,000;  Conference 
Claimants,  $217,000, — in  all,  $2,339,632,  in  one  year, 
for  Christ's  kingdom,  where,  twenty  years  ago,  the 
offerings  were  less  than  one-quarter  as  much,  and  fifty 
years  ago  they  were,  all  told,  for  one  year,  $140,000, 
or  just  one-seventeenth  as  much.  The  sum  given  by 
Methodists  fifty  years  ago,  for  all  purposes,  made  an 
average  per  member,  for  that  year,  of  fifteen  cents. 
The  amounts  raised  for  benevolences  last  year,  per 
member,  are  more  than  $1.25,  an  increase  of  1,100 
per  cent. 

Since  its  organization,  seventy-two  years  ago,  the 
Missionary  Society  has  laid  upon  the  altar  of  Chris- 
tian missions  an  average  of  $347,222  a  year,  and  an 
aggregate  of  twenty-five  millions. 

Let  us  contrast  this  connectional  form  of  benefi- 
cence, as  to  Church  Extension,  with  the  usage  which 
preceded  it.  In  a  village  in  Chenango  County,  New 
York,  a  Methodist  church  was  much  needed;  but  the 
society  there  was  unable  to  build  it,  and  so  was  the 
circuit.  A  wealthy  layman,  after  liberally  contribut- 
ing to  the  enterprise,  entered  his  buggy,  and  rode  over 


464     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

a  radius  of  one  hundred  miles,  privately  soliciting 
funds  to  complete  the  erection  of  the  church.  He  was 
out  two  months  in  this  service,  and  so  gathered  some 
$250  or  $300. 

One  church,  of  which  I  had  personal  knowledge, 
actually  carried  a  debt  of  $250  for  years,  to  be  able 
to  turn  away  all  private  solicitors  for  aid  to  build 
churches.  I  do  not  doubt  they  saved  themselves  the 
giving  of  thousands  by  this  device.  Reference  has 
been  made  to  the  smallness  of  our  Book  Concerns. 
In  1836  the  New  York  house  burned  down.  The 
Church  contributed  $90,000  to  restore  it.  In  that  con- 
tribution every  member  of  my  father's  family  partici- 
pated. The  capital  has  grown  to  $2,500,000.  For 
purposes  outside  of  its  regular  business,  the  Concern 
has  paid  out  more  than  its  working  capital.  For  the 
quadrennium  closing  in  1848,  the  sales  were  $612,- 
625.19,  slightly  less  than  $1  a  member.  For  the  quad- 
rennium closing  in  1888,  the  sales  were  $6,920,743.17, 
or  over  $3  a  member. 

According  to  Dr.  Dorchester,  the  entire  value  of 
the  religious  literature  published  in  the  United  States 
by  the  different  denominations  was  estimated  at  $140,- 
000,000,  of  which  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
has  issued  $50,000,000,  or  over  one-third  of  the  whole, 
and  more  than  half  of  this  amount  in  the  last  sixteen 
years. 

In  the  modes  of  conducting  Annual  Conference 
business  there  has  been  marked  improvement.  The 
fcope  and  accuracy  of  all  Conference  statistics  have 
been  subserved  by  the  changes.  Much  time  has  been 
saved  in  one  particular  line  of  Conference  Proceed- 
ings. I  refer  to  the  passage  of  character.  When  the 
name  of  a  member  of  Conference  was  called,  and  the 
question  was  asked,  "Is  there  anything  against  him?" 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL   SERMON.  465 

he  retired  from  the  Conference-room,  while,  in  his 
absence,  the  presiding  elder  represented  him  and  his 
year's  work,  sometimes  with  words  of  criticism,  some- 
times with  words  of  eulogy,  or  both,  taking  for  this 
considerable  time.  All  this  has  given  place  to  the 
present  more  suitable,  and  equally  thorough  and  ef- 
fective mode. 

Equal  improvement  is  noted  as  to  the  mode  of 
conducting  General  Conference  business.  In  the  first 
of  which  I  was  a  member,  in  1856,  the  appeal  cases 
were  heard  and  decided  by  the  whole  body  of  the  dele- 
gates, taking  for  the  decision  of  three  or  four  appeals 
several  days.  In  the  General  Conference  of  1820  two 
cases  of  appeal  for  the  location  of  preachers  took  parts 
of  nine  days,  and  two  cases  of  appeal  for  maladminis- 
tration occupied  parts  of  nine  days. 

In  1864  a  Court  of  Appeals  was  held  during  the 
General  Conference,  over  which  one  of  the  bishops 
presided.  This  was  followed  by  the  present  arrange- 
ment of  triers  of  appeals  in  General  Conference  Dis- 
tricts. 

There  has  been  a  growing  tendency  in  the  wealthier 
charges,  for  the  laymen  to  make  choice  of  their  pas- 
tors, instead  of,  as  in  the  earlier  stage  of  our  history, 
leaving  the  matter  in  the  hands  of  the  bishop. 

Unless  all  charges  should  alike  be  practically  al- 
lowed to  designate  their  pastors,  and  all  ministers  to 
select  their  charges,  the  usage  is  a  usurpation  of  dan- 
gerous possibilities. 

Love-feast  tickets  have  been  used  and  disused  in 
my  time.  Band-meetings,  within  my  recollection,  have 
passed  into  innocuous  desuetude. 

As  a  rule,  the  Sunday-noon  class  was  always  held 
by  the  officiating  preacher  when  present.     I   usually 
led  the  class  after  preaching,  sometimes,  when  really 
30 


466      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

I  should  have  been  resting  and  recovering  from  the 
exhaustion  induced  by  the  preaching-service.  This 
custom  was  retained  only  on  circuits  and  very  small 
stations. 

XI. 

From  this  review  of  changes  we  turn  to  the  present, 
with  its  improved  adjustments  and  methods,  and  with 
its  more  systematic  and  easy  working,  and  its  multi- 
plied facilities  for  doing  for  Christ. 

Our  progress  in  Christian  achievements  should 
keep  pace  with  our  increased  facilities. 

In  the  earlier  times  we  rode  to  our  circuits  and 
around  them  on  horseback.  In  the  same  way  we  rode 
to  the  Annual  and  General  Conferences,  four  miles 
an  hour.  We  do  these  things  now  by  train,  thirty 
miles  an  hour.  By  electric  power  we  shall  yet  travel 
to  Conference,  and  over  presiding  elder  districts,  one 
hundred  miles  an  hour.  We  sail  the  seas  twenty  miles 
an  hour.  In  the  near  future  we  may  fly  through  space 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  an  hour. 

Pessimistic  views  of  the  present  are  wrong.  The 
past  was  not  better.  It  was  not  so  good.  Badness 
kills  itself.  It  is  short-lived.  Goodness  has  inherent 
and  persistent  vitality.  The  stability  of  a  bad  cause 
is  only  apparent.  Slavery  thirty  years  ago  seemed  a 
solid  institution.  It  was  imbedded  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, intrenched  in  commerce  and  in  the  social  habits, 
industries,  and  conditions  of  the  people.  It  even  flour- 
ished; and  it  boasted  defenders  from  the  Bible.  But 
how  quickly  God  withered  it  in  the  hot  flames  of  the 
war  which  its  injustice  and  greed  had  kindled!  It 
would  be  as  impossible  to  revivify  it  as  to  reanimate 
the  mummy  of  old  Pharaoh. 

Within  my  memory,  dueling  existed  in  this  coun- 
try, almost  unchallenged.  The  breath  of  an  enlight- 
ened public  opinion  smote  dueling  as  unmanly  and  un- 


MY  SEMI-CENTENNIAL  SERMON.  467 

christian;  and  although  hoary  with  age,  it  died,  and 
there  are  none  so  poor  to  do  it  reverence. 

Never  since  Jesus  hung  in  bitter  agony  on  Cal- 
vary have  the  forces  of  truth  been  so  potent,  active, 
and  aggressive  as  at  this  moment.  Of  these  forces 
none  are  wider  in  their  sweep  nor  grander  in  their 
triumph  than  this  Church  of  our  fathers  and  of  us, 
their  rons,  planted  in  this  land  by  our  founder,  John 
Wesley,  one  hundred  and  seven  years  ago. 

Dm.ng  1890,  eight  million  copies  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures  have  been  issued  and  circulated  by  the 
British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  and  the  American 
Bible  Society— from  each  in  equal  numbers.  A 
greater  number,  this,  than  had  been  issued  in  the  first 
eighteen  centuries  of  the  Christian  era. 

Five  thousand  heathen  converts  in  one  of  our  India 
Conferences  in  one  year,  and  in  all  our  foreign  mis- 
sions eleven  thousand,  are  reported  in  the  year  1890. 
Our  total  annual  increase  of  members  the  last  year, 
including  deaths,  is  108,696;  and  not  including  the 
deaths,  the  net  increase  is  80,352.  That  means  an 
average  of  nearly  three  hundred  accessions  every  day 
in  the  year. 

XII. 
Let  us  cast  the  horoscope  for  a  hundred  years, 
and  see  what  it  reveals.  At  the  rate  of  increase  in 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  since  Mr.  Wesley 
died—a  hundred  years  ago— we  shall  have,  in  1991, 
of  traveling  ministers,  3,187,000;  of  members,  1,102,- 
867,000;  of  churches,  25,216,849,  a  seating  capacity 
of  fifteen  billions.  Imagination  staggers  before  these 
stupendous  figures.  We  must  use  hyperbole  to  ap- 
proximate the  expression  of  the  glory  God  will  put 
upon  us. 

Isaiah's  metaphors,  in  his  sixtieth  chapter,  assist 
our  words  faintly  to  foretell  the  sweep  of  the  gigantic 


408     SIXTY- ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

extension  of  God's  kingdom  in  the  earth.  Gentiles 
and  kings  shall  come  to  her  light  and  to  the  grandeur 
of  her  ascension.  Her  sons  shall  come  from  far.  The 
abundance  of  the  sea  shall  be  given  her.  Even  the 
abundance  of  the  desert  shall  be  hers,  brought  to  her 
altars  by  the  camels  and  dromedaries,  the  ships  of  the 
desert.  The  forces  of  the  Gentiles  shall  come  as  clouds 
and  as  doves.  The  queens  of  Sheba  and  Seba  shall 
bring  gifts.  Yea,  all  nations  shall  serve  her.  The 
gates  shall  not  be  shut  night  nor  day.  "For  brass  God 
will  bring  gold,  for  iron  silver,  and  for  wood  stones, 
and  for  stones  iron,"  "A  little  one  shall  become  a 
thousand,  and  a  small  one  a  strong  city."  It  is  com- 
ing, brethren.  God  shall  bring  it  to  pass  in  his  own 
time.    Hallelujah!     Let  the  Lord  be  magnified! 

1.  I  am  glad  and  thankful  that  my  life  has  been 
spent  from  childhood  in  God's  service  in  the  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church.  In  my  early  boyhood  I  en- 
listed under  the  banners  of  Christ.  As  the  lengthen- 
ing shadows  creep  on,  there,  to  the  last,  my  feet  shall 
stand. 

2.  I  wish  to  say  to  the  young  men  of  the  Confer- 
ence, your  possibilities  for  earth  and  heaven  in  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  are  better  and  grander 
than  in  any  other. 

3.  The  system  of  Methodism  does  not  need  mend- 
ing, but  working.  It  is  impossible  to  modify  it  essen- 
tially without  destroying  it.  It  should  be  loyally 
worked  for  all  there  is  in  it.  "Whereunto  we  have  al- 
ready attained,  let  us  walk  by  the  same  rule.  Let  us 
mind  the  same  thing." 

In  1893  I  was  appointed  presiding  elder  of  the 
Hillsboro  District,  which  I  have  served  continu- 
ously ever  since,  and  am  now  closing  my  fifth 
year  of  that  work. 


HILLSBORO   COLLEGE.  469 

In  October,  1896,  our  church  in  Blanchester 
was  burned.  The  lire  in  which  it  perished  was  a 
very  sweeping  and  destructive  one.  Compara- 
tively, as  to  populations  and  the  wealth  of  the  two 
places,  it  was  more  destructive  than  the  famous 
Chicago  lire  of  a  few  years  since,  which  attracted 
the  sympathy  of  the  whole  world,  and  elicited  con- 
tributions from  very  many  cities  of  our  own  and 
foreign  countries.  This  Church,  with  a  few  hun- 
dred dollars'  assistance  from  other  charges,  was 
rebuilt  by  a  finer  and  more  commodious  edifice. 

HILLSBORO  COLLEGE. 

It  is  worth  while  to  consider  a  brief  sketch  of 
the  history  of  this  noble  institution,  Hillsboro  Col- 
lege. The  following  address  was  delivered  by  me 
at  the  reopening  of  the  college,  January  19,  1896: 

This  is  a  memorable  occasion.  It  is  a  day  of  retro- 
spect, reaching  backward  almost  seventy  years.  It 
is  also  a  day  of  prospect.  Bright  with  the  resplendent 
achievements  of  its  past,  the  future  beckons  us  on- 
ward by  its  large  promise  of  intellectual  and  moral 
development;  the  waving  harvest  of  sixty  years  of 
sowing.  Hillsboro  has  long  been  honored  as  the  seat 
of  higher  educational  institutions. 

Threescore  and  eight  years  ago,  Rev.  Joseph  Mc- 
Dowell Mathews,  D.  D.,  began  his  illustrious  career 
in  this  city  as  an  educator  of  females.  For  early  his- 
torical facts  on  this  subject,  I  am  indebted  to  Hon. 
James  H.  Thompson,  as  I  find  them  in  his  history  of 
Highland  County.  In  1829  the  Hillsboro  Academy 
was  organized.  Governor  Allen  Trimble  was  the  first 
president  of  its  Board  of  Trustees,  in  which  relation  he 


470      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

continued  for  twenty-five  years.  His  successors  were 
General  Joseph  J.  McDowell  and  Samuel  E.  Hibben, 
Esq.  In  this  academy  Dr.  Mathews  taught  from  1827 
to  1836.  In  1839,  Oakland  Female  Seminary  was  es- 
tablished by  Dr.  Mathews,  at  the  east  end  of  Main 
Street,  between  the  Chillicothe  and  Marshall  Pikes. 
Here  for  eighteen  years  he  taught.  During  this  time 
one  hundred  graduates  were  catalogued,  "who,"  as 
Judge  Thompson  attests  in  his  history,  "are  the 
mothers  and  grandmothers  of  a  posterity,  which,  in 
every  part  of  our  grand  country,  from  the  front  line  of 
human  progress, have  justly  distinguished  themselves." 
Many  of  them  were  then  in  middle  life  and  in  old  age, 
as  they  had  been,  with  established  characters  from 
girlhood  the  zealous  advocates  and  brave  guardians 
of  a  very  high,  pure,  and  undefiled  type  of  woman- 
hood, which  fixes,  defines,  and  gilds  the  true  outline 
of  all  chaste  society.  Judge  Thompson  pays  a  high 
tribute  to  two  historic  teachers:  "From  1845  to  ^S1* 
Professor  Isaac  Lewis  taught  a  school  in  every  grade 
of  mathematical,  classical,  and  English  learning." 

Of  Dr.  Mathews,  Judge  Thompson  adds,  that  "he 
has  for  forty-five  years  been  engaged  in  founding  Oak- 
land Female  Seminary,  and  in  teaching  females.  Dr. 
Mathews  established  the  first  female  school  in  Ohio, 
in  which  a  thorough  collegiate  education  was  given  to 
girls."  Some  of  Dr.  Mathews's  graduates  were  among 
the  leading  matrons  of  the  past  generation.  I  cite  a 
notable  example:  the  widow  of  the  late  Major  W.  D. 
Rickham,  of  Dayton,  Ohio.  She  was  one  of  the  lead- 
ing projectors  and  managers  of  the  Woman's  Christian 
Association  of  Dayton.  She  still  holds  an  important 
place  in  its  management.  Her  vigorous  and  able 
administration  has  contributed  to  make  it  a  model 
institution  of  its  kind, — a  name  and  a  praise  in  all  the 
land. 


JOSEPH  M'D.   MATHEWS.  471 

To  the  wise  and  faithful  work  of  Dr.  Mathews  is 
due  the  elevated  and  noble  character  of  the  women 
of  Highland  County  for  the  last  half-century — the 
mothers  and  grandmothers  of  the  former  and  present 
generations  of  the  people  of  this  section.  These 
worthy  matrons  of  his  training  have  impressed  their 
strong  personality  upon  this  community,  and  have 
made  it,  for  brains,  vigor,  and  enterprise,  second  to 
none. 

In  1857  the  Hillsboro  Female  College  took  the 
place  of  the  Oakland  Female  Seminary.  For  three 
years  he  was  its  first  president.  He  was  succeeded  by 
Rev.  W.  G.  W.  Lewis,  Rev.  Henry  Turner,  Rev. 
Allen  T.  Thompson,  Rev.  D.  Copeland,  then  Dr. 
Mathews,  a  second  term  of  five  vears;  Rev. 'John  F. 
Loyd,  D.  D.,  Rev.  W.  C.  Helt,  and  Mr.  Gall. 

In  1877,  as  pastor  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  in  Hillsboro,  I  visited  Dr.  Mathews,  who  was 
then  aged  and  in  precarious  health.  Two  years  later 
he  died  in  your  midst,  full  of  years  and  honors.  I  re- 
call two  beautiful  incidents.  On  my  first  visit,  in  reply 
to  my  inquiry  as  to  his  condition,  he  recited  to  me, 
with  feeble  voice,  Charles  Wesley's  well-known  hymn, 
dictated  on  his  death-bed  when  he  was  over  fourscore 
years  of  age : 

"  In  age  and  feebleness  extreme, 
Who  shall  a  helpless  worm  redeem? 
Jesus,  my  only  hope  thou  art, 
Strength  of  my  failing  flesh  and  heart; 
O  could  I  catch  a  smile  from  thee, 
Then  drop  into  eternity!" 

On  my  last  visit,  some  six  or  eight  months  before 
his  death,  in  answer  to  my  inquiries,  he  whispered: 
"I  am  waiting  on  this  side  Jordan  until  my  Joshua 
shall  come  and  divide  the  waters,  and  lead  me  through, 
dry-shod."     A  beautiful  ending  of  a  lovely  life. 


472      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

Forty-one  years  ago,  out  of  the  Oakland  Female 
Seminary  grew  the  Hillsboro  Female  College,  which 
a  few  years  ago  was  made  a  mixed  institution  for  per- 
sons of  both  sexes.  Later  still,  came  Miss  Emily 
Grand-Girard's  Female  Seminary.  Hillsboro  College 
cost  fifty  thousand  dollars.  The  fathers  of  the  former 
generation  deserve  great  credit  for  their  self-sacrificing 
and  tireless  efforts  to  create  and  sustain  this  edifice, 
which  we  are  met  this  day  formally  to  reopen  with 
fitting  services,  thus  dedicating  it  to  its  great  work  of 
higher  education  among  the  young  men  and  women 
of  this  community.  The  graduates  from  this  college 
alone  number  one  hundred  and  fifty.  May  18,  1894,  it 
was  consumed  by  fire.  May  we  not  hope  that,  like 
the  fabled  phoenix,  this  large  and  elegant  structure, 
improved  in  style  and  finish  beyond  its  predecessor, 
shall  yet  be  successful  in  a  more  extended  sphere  than 
its  predecessor,  and  in  grander  and  better  work? 
When  the  flames  on  that  May-day  sent  up  in  smoke 
and  cinders  the  combustible  parts  of  this  dear  old 
college,  they  left  standing  the  strong,  non-combustible 
walls;  and,  what  was  incomparably  better  still,  its 
friends  and  patrons  have  rebuilt  it  in  better  form.  In 
doing  this  they  have  displayed  an  energy  of  purpose 
and  of  spirit,  which  are  an  assuring  prophecy  of  its 
success  and  continuous  benefactions. 

Rev.  Dr.  Bashford  (President  of  Ohio  Wesleyan 
University) :  On  behalf  of  the  trustees  of  the  Hillsboro 
College,  I  present  you  this  building  for  appropriate 
dedicatory  services. 

Dr.  Bashford  delivered  an  eloquent  address,  and 
then  formally  dedicated  the  building  in  an  appro- 
priate prayer. 

Hillsboro  Charge  is  now  a  very  strong  Church. 
Rev.  Marion  LeSourd  is  pastor.     I  have  resided 


HILLSBORO    CHURCH.  473 

here  for  the  last  five  years.  I  recently  held  a  quar- 
terly-meeting in  Hillsboro.  It  has  over  seven  hun- 
dred members.  The  sacramental  service  was  very 
largely  attended.  I  have  never  seen  so  many  com- 
municants participate  at  one  service  in  this  church, 
as  at  this  meeting.  Probably  not  less  than  four 
hundred  received  the  holy  sacrament.  The  love- 
feast  in  the  afternoon  was  almost  as  largely  at- 
tended. It  was  a  most  spiritual  and  powerful  serv- 
ice. The  following  article  appeared  in  the  News- 
Herald  the  next  day : 

During  the  sacramental  service  in  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  last  Sunday,  Dr.  Pearne  announced 
some  historic  facts,  as  follows: 

"This  Church  was  organized  in  1805,  ninety- three 
years  ago.  For  ninety-three  years  our  fathers  and 
mothers  have  sent  up  prayers  to  the  Lord,  and  have 
received  showers  of  blessings  in  response.  Here  souls 
for  more  than  ninety  years  have  come  to  the  mercy- 
seat,  and  have  found  healing  and  adoption  and  life. 
During  the  last  twenty-five  years  this  Church  has 
raised  $10,764  for  missions,  and  for  general  Church 
purposes  $91,761,  including  the  money  given  for 
building  and  improving  the  church  and  parsonage. 
During  the  same  time,  in  the  last  twenty-five  years, 
the  Sunday-school  has  given  $3,216  for  missions,  and 
$2,970  for  current  Sunday-school  expenses;  in  all, 
$6,186. 

"Eighty-eight  ministers  and  twenty-nine  presiding 
elders  have  served  this  Church.  Brother  M.  LeSourd 
is  the  eighty-eighth  pastor  who  has  officiated  in  this 
Church,  and  I  am  the  twenty-ninth  of  the  presiding 
elders  who  have  served  this  people.  This  Church  has 
sent  out  two  missionaries,  Miss  Loyd  and  Miss  Ayres, 


474      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT    WORK. 

to  Mexico.  It  has  sent  out  an  Official  Board  Blank 
Record  Book,  which  one  of  your  earnest,  working 
men,  L.  Detwiler,  has  prepared,  and  it  is  now  in  nearly 
two  thousand  Methodist  charges,  and  it  will  doubtless 
be  so  used  as  long  as  Methodism  shall  continue  as  a 
Church.  The  first  preacher  in  charge  in  this  station, 
nearly  sixty  years  ago,  was  Randolph  S.  Foster,  for 
the  last  twenty-seven  years  one  of  her  honored  bishops, 
and  one  of  the  grandest  and  noblest  of  veterans." 

A  REMARKABLE  BIRTHDAY  ANNIVERSARY. 

In  September,  1894,  Rev.  R.  S.  Rust,  D.  D., 
LL.  D.,  celebrated  the  eightieth  anniversary  of  his 
birthday,  at  his  residence  on  West  Fourth  Street, 
Cincinnati.  His  friends,  in  large  numbers,  crowded 
his  home  on  the  evening  of  that  day.  A  friend,  in 
Delaware,  Ohio,  Mrs.  Professor  L.  D.  McCabe, 
sent  eighty  beautiful  white  roses,  a  most  fitting  and 
elegant  offering.  Speeches  and  music  and  prayer 
enlivened  and  graced  the  occasion.  The  writer  of 
this  volume,  who  had  been  for  nearly  thirty  years 
a  devoted  friend  and  admirer  of  the  noble  hero 
whose  life  had  been  full  of  great  and  blessed  service 
for  the  Master,  was  present,  and,  being  called  on, 
he  offered  the  following  remarks : 

I  am  both  honored  and  delighted  to  be  present  on 
this  joyous  occasion,  and  to  share  with  you  in  these 
most  appropriate  festivities.  As  representing  the 
Freedmen's  Aid  and  Southern  Education  Society,  with 
which  our  venerable  friend  has  been  so  long  and  ef- 
fectively associated,  I  am  to  contribute  some  brief  and 
befitting  statements. 

In  traveling  in  different  countries,  certain  marked 


DR.    RUST'S   lUR  HI  DAY  ANNIVERSARY.         475 

features  of  the  landscape  have  greatly  impressed  me 
with  their  beauty.  Repeated  observation  of  these  rare 
but  fascinating  objects  has  only  augmented  their 
weird  spell  over  my  imagination.  Two  examples  are 
cited  for  illustration:  Thirty  years  ago  I  traversed  the 
defile  in  the  mountains  of  Jamaica,  called  the  bog- 
walk,  through  which  flows  the  Rio  Cobra.  For  eigh- 
teen or  twenty  miles  the  Cobra  meanders  through  a 
canon — mountain  cleft  from  summit  to  base  three 
thousand  feet.  Between  these  towering  walls,  which 
seem  almost  to  touch  each  other,  in  tortuous  windings 
the  bold  stream  pursues  its  serpentine  way,  disclosing 
with  every  bend  of  the  canon  new  forms  of  beauty. 
Through  this  remarkable  defile  I  have  often  traveled, 
and  always  with  deepened  interest.  Fifty-three  years 
ago  I  first  saw  Niagara.  The  majestic  crescent,  a  mile 
in  circuit,  over  the  brink  of  whose  awful  depth  the 
waters  are  foaming  and  rolling  and  thundering  in  a 
ceaseless  downpour,  produced  an  overwhelming  ef- 
fect. I  wanted  to  be  silent.  I  found  myself  quoting 
the  poet's  invocation: 

"  Come,  then,  expressive  silence,  muse  his  praise." 

Eternity  seemed  very  near.  God  was  revealed  in  his 
stupendous  works.  Many  times  since  I  have  revisited 
the  mighty  waterfall.  That  gorgeous  display  of  Divine 
power  has  always  deeply  impressed  me. 

When  I  recently  visited  Niagara,  a  singular  marvel 
had  been  wrought.  The  great  cataract  was  still  there: 
its  sublime  features  all  unchanged.  The  human  engi- 
neer had  chiseled  in  the  rocks  which  shore  the  floods 
an  unseen  chamber,  through  which  a  small  part  of  the 
unused  water  is  diverted  and  made  to  fall  upon  tur- 
bine wheels,  so  generating  electricity.  This  electricity 
is  transmitted  over  an  area  of  three  hundred  square 
miles  to  flood  the  populous  State  of  New  York  with 


476      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OE  ITINERANT    WORK. 

millions  of  incandescent  lights,  and  to  make  that  vast 
area  vibrant  with  the  whirr  and  buzz  of  countless 
spindles  and  shuttles,  and  with  hundreds  of  forges. 
And  all  this  without  at  all  diminishing  the  magnificent 
glory  of  Niagara.  Human  genius  had  utilized  God's 
hidden  power. 

In  this  social  gathering  these  material  illustrations 
are  suggestive.  They  furnish  most  fitting  analogies. 
The  earthquakes  might  have  cleaved  the  mountain 
to  its  base,  so  making  a  way  for  the  stream  and  a  road 
for  the  wayfarer  along  the  picturesque  river.  For  two 
centuries  and  a  half  the  mountain  of  slavery  had  been 
growing  in  this  country.  God  smote  it  with  the  terri- 
ble thunders  of  war.  In  the  words  of  Liberty  and 
Union,  the  battle-cry  of  freedom  was  sung: 

"  I  have  read  a  fiery  gospel,  writ  in  burnished  rows  of  steel, 
As  ye  deal  with  my  contemners,  so  with  you  my  grace  shall 

deal; 
Let  the  hero  born  of  woman,  crush  the  serpent  with  his 
heel ; 

Our  God  is  marching  on. 

I   have  seen  him  in   the  watch  fires  of  a  hundred  circling 

camps; 
They  have  builded  him   an  altar  in  the  evening  dews  and 

damps ; 
I  have  read  his  righteous  sentence  by  the  dim  and  flaring 

lamps ; 

His  day  is  marching  on. 

In  the  beaut}'  of  the  lilies,  Christ  was  born  across  the  sea, 
With  a  glory  in  his  bosom,  which  transfigures  you  and  me, 
As  he  died  to  make  men  holy,  let  us  die  to  make  men  free, 
While  God  is  marching  on. 

In  this  case  the  mountain  has  become  a  plain.  Slavery 
has  gone  down  forever.  God's  own  hand  buried  it  in 
the  red  gulf  of  battle. 

While   the   immeasurable   power   of   Niagara   has 


DR.   RUST'S  BIRTHDAY  ANNIVERSARY.         477 

been  tapped  by  man's  device,  so  transmitting  force  to 
be  wielded  for  human  uses  and  needs,  so  when  the 
mountain  of  slavery  disappeared,  God  opened  in  the 
desert  streams  of  healing  and  relief  for  his  long-op- 
pressed children.  There  flowed  forth  from  millions  of 
loyal  Christian  men  and  women,  first  through  the 
channels  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  and  later  by  the 
Freedmen's  Aid  Society,  tides  of  blessing  for  God's 
poor;  refreshing  streams  of  beneficence  in  rich  abun- 
dance. Never  has  Christian  devotion  yielded  larger 
nor  more  prolific  results  for  human  uplifting  and  en- 
richment. 

Eighty  years  ago  to-day  God  sent  into  this  world, 
in  Massachusetts,  one  of  the  chief  New  England 
States,  a  man-child,  who  contained  within  himself  pos- 
sibilities as  actual  as,  and  relatively  far  more  signifi- 
cant than,  the  giant  oak  in  the  tiny  acorn,  the  Rio 
Cobra  in  the  Jamaica  mountains,  and  the  grand  Ni- 
agara in  the  scanty  streamlets  of  Canadian  forests. 
The  name  given  to  this  newcomer  was  Richard  Sutton 
Rust.  His  early  years  were  spent  in  conditions  admi- 
rably befitting  him  for  the  important  place  he  was  so 
soon  and  so  nobly  to  fill.  He  was  made  of  martyr 
stuff.  In  his  early  manhood  he  championed  the  then 
unpopular  cause  of  the  slave.  He  "fought  with  beasts 
at  Ephesus,"  where  he  was  mobbed  for  his  Abolition- 
ism; and  when  he  was  pleading  and  working  for  the 
freedom  of  his  Brother  in  Black — "God's  image 
carved  in  ebony" — he  was  still  further  prepared  for 
his  great  life-work  by  his  direction,  for  three  years,  of 
the  educational  forces  of  New  Hampshire,  as  Commis- 
sioner of  the  Public  Schools  of  that  State. 

Then  he  came  West  for  a  broader  theater  of  action. 
For  some  years  he  was  president  of  the  Cincinnati 
Wesleyan  Female  College.  His  first  grand  achieve- 
ment in  his  new  field  and  in  his  chosen  line  was  in 


478      SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF   ITINERANT  WORK. 

planting  and  directing  Wilber force  University  for  peo- 
ple of  color.  It  still  stands,  a  growing  monument  of 
his  wise  philanthropic  zeal.  Later  he  became  corre- 
sponding secretary  of  the  Freedmen's  Aid  Society, 
which,  with  steadily  increasing  efficiency,  he  admin- 
istered for  twenty-two  years.  The  conditions  were 
peculiar.  The  mountain  of  slavery  had  become  the 
wide  plain  of  freedom  for  five  millions  of  freedmen 
then — seven  and  a  half  millions  now — who  for  two 
centuries  and  a  half  had  been  held  and  accounted  as 
goods  and  chattels  personal.  Just  as  Niagara's  hid- 
den forces  were  developed  by  human  skill  and  genius 
into  myriad  forms  of  activity  and  light,  so  this  Freed- 
men's Aid  and  Southern  Education  Society,  so  ably 
wielded  by  our  venerable  brother,  Rev.  Dr.  Rust,  has 
filled  eleven  States  in  the  Black  Belt  with  its  incalcu- 
lable benefactions,  alike  to  whites  and  blacks.  He 
will  never  be  dissociated  from  the  colossal  beneficence 
which  he  assisted  to  create  and  so  beneficently  admin- 
istered. That  service,  in  the  thought  and  sympathies 
of  millions  of  the  Freedmen  and  their  descendants,  has 
forever  linked  him  inseparably  with  our  martyr  Presi- 
dent, Abraham  Lincoln.  Fourteen  years  ago  the  di- 
rection of  the  Society,  whose  infancy  he  had  nursed 
and  developed  to  stalwart  maturity,  passing  into  other 
hands,  Dr.  Rust  was  elected  by  the  General  Confer- 
ence honorary  corresponding  secretary  of  this  God- 
honoring   and    God-honored    philanthropy. 

As  the  child  of  destiny  and  man  of  mark,  he  is  still 
living  at  the  ripe  age  of  fourscore  years,  far  beyond 
the  ordinary  term  of  human  life,  to  behold  in  his  ad- 
vancing years  the  ever-widening  circles  of  beneficence 
which  he  set  in  motion,  filling  earth  and  heaven  with 
abundant  ripe  and  golden  fruit.  For  thirty  years  I 
have  been  in  touch  with  him.    For  a  score  and  a  half  of 


METHODISM  ORGANIZED  IN  OHIO.  479 

years  I  have  known  and  loved  and  honored  him,  and 
my  own  life  has  been  the  nobler  and  better  for  the 
association. 

The  cradle  is  the  prophecy  of  the  bridal  altar,  and 
that  foretypes  the  cerements  of  the  casket  and  the 
grave.  But  the  monuments  he  has  reared  in  his  long 
life  will  endure  throughout  the  history  of  time  and 
the  endless  cycles  of  eternity.  A  higher  crowning 
awaits  him,  which  I  expect  to  witness,  amid  the  splen- 
dors of  eternity,  when  God  shall  place  upon  his  im- 
mortal brow  the  unfading  coronal  of  righteousness, 
so  recognizing  and  rewarding  the  triumphs  of  Chris- 
tian philanthropy,  in  augmenting  which  our  distin- 
guished friend  bore  so  eminent  and  illustrious  a  part. 

Methodism  was  first  organized  in  Ohio  by  John 
Kobler  in  1798.  The  Methodists  of  the  State 
having  determined,  by  a  concerted  action  of  the 
several  Annual  Conferences,  to  celebrate  the  cen- 
tennial of  its  introduction,  a  committee  of  one  from 
each  Conference  was  appointed  to  make  the  neces- 
sary arrangements.  They  were  authorized  to  ap- 
point the  place,  devise  the  program,  invite  the 
speakers,  attend  to  transportation  and  entertain- 
ment, and  look  after  the  comfort  of  their  guests. 
The  committee  fixed  upon  Delaware  as  the  place, 
and  Commencement-week  of  the  Ohio  Wesleyan 
University  as  the  most  suitable  time.  The  exer- 
cises began  on  Tuesday,  June  21st,  and  continued 
till  Friday,  June  24,  1898. 

Having  been  requested  by  the  committee  to 
prepare  for  that  occasion  a  paper  on  "  The 
Gospel  on  Horseback,"  I  delivered  the  following 


480     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

address  to  a   large   audience   assembled    in  Gray 
Chapel: 

THE  GOSPEL  ON  HORSEBACK. 

The  theme  assigned  me  for  a  brief  essay  is  entitled, 
"The  Gospel  on  Horseback."  With  permission,  I 
would  like  to  change  it  thus:  "The  Methodist  Itinerant 
on  Horseback."  Except  as  the  early  Methodist 
preachers  carried  in  their  saddlebags  the  Bible,  the 
hymn-book,  the  Discipline,  and  Christian  literature 
for  distribution,  the  gospel  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be 
on  horseback.  In  Methodist  terminology  the  word 
itinerant  describes  neither  the  fact  nor  the  mode  of 
traveling.  In  our  usage  the  word  itinerant  means  a 
pastor  who  often  changes  his  pastorate,  in  contradis- 
tinction from  one  who  holds  a  settled  or  permanent 
pastorate,  and  who  therefore  does  not  change  at  all. 
A  Methodist  itinerant  who  rides  on  horseback  is  dif- 
ferentiated from  a  stationed  minister,  who  does  not 
travel,  because  his  position  does  not  admit  of  his  trav- 
eling. And  yet,  in  Methodist  parlance,  the  one  is  as 
really  an  itinerant  as  the  other. 

The  intent  of  my  assigned  theme,  as  I  construe  it, 
is  to  describe  the  early  Methodist  preachers  who 
reached  their  appointments  by  horse,  or  who  thus 
rode  their  circuits.  I  was  probably  programmed  for 
this  subject,  because  from  my  long  ministerial  life  I 
was  supposed  to  be  personally,  and  from  observation, 
familiar  with  this  subject;  and  such  is,  indeed,  the  fact. 
Sixty-one  years  ago  I  rode  on  horseback,  each  Satur- 
day, from  Cazenovia  Seminary,  twenty  miles  away, 
to  Onondaga  Circuit,  as  a  supply.  I  continued  to 
travel  that  circuit  by  horse  nearly  two  years.  My  cir- 
cuit lay  from  four  to  ten  miles  south  from  Syracuse, 
N.  Y.  For  eight  or  ten  years  this  was  my  mode  of 
travel.     Fourteen  years  later,  when  sent  as  a  mission- 


THE   GOSPEL    ON  HORSEBACK.  48 1 

ary  to  Oregon,  both  myself  and  all  my  Conference 
associates  traveled  by  horse.  For  this  mode  of  travel 
there  is  ample  precedent.  Pharaoh's  military,  who 
pursued  Israel  to  the  Red  Sea  to  recapture  and  re- 
enslave  them,  and  who  met  their  awful  fate  by  drown- 
ing, included  horsemen.  Miriam's  song  of  victory 
celebrated  this  event.  "The  Lord  hath  triumphed 
gloriously.  The  horse  and  his  rider  hath  he  thrown 
into  the  sea."  Sennacherib's  army,  which  came  hun- 
dreds of  leagues  to  besiege  Jerusalem,  included  horse- 
men.   How  awful  their  doom! 

"  There  lay  the  rider,  distorted  and  pale, 
With  the  dew  on  his  brow,  and  the  rust  on  his  mail ; 
The  tents  were  all  silent,  the  banners  alone, 
The  lances  unlifted,  the  trumpet  unblown. 

And  there  lay  the  steed,  with  his  nostril  all  wide ; 
But  through  it  there  rolled  not  the  breath  of  his  pride ; 
And  the  foam  of  their  gasping  lay  white  on  the  turf, 
As  the  spray  of  the  sea  on  the  wave-beaten  surf. 

Mounting  his  fiery  Bucephalus,  Alexander  went  forth 
from  Macedon  to  the  conquest  of  the  world.  Cortez 
conquered  Mexico  by  four  hundred  infantry  and  fif- 
teen horsemen.  Napoleon's  marshals  and  battalions 
subjugated  Europe  to  his  insatiate  sway. 

It  would  be  strange,  indeed,  that  horses  could  be 
used  only  for  purposes  of  ambition,  blood,  and  death. 
Nor  is  it  true.  The  bishops  and  curates  in  the  days 
of  the  Bloody  Mary,  probably  including  Latimer  and 
Ridley  and  others  of  the  Smithfield  martyrs,  traveled 
their  bishoprics  and  curacies  in  this  manner.  John 
Wesley  and  his  ministerial  and  lay  helpers  rode  up 
and  down  in  Great  Britain  in  the  eighteenth  century 
upon  horses.  It  is  equally  true  that  to  this  day  some 
of  the  large  Wesleyan  circuits  keep  a  circuit  horse 
for  the  use  of  the  circuit  preachers.  For  a  hundred 
31 


482     SIXTY-ONE   YEARS  OF  ITINERANT  WORK. 

and  fifty  years  these  mounted  knights  of  the  cross 
have  been  setting  the  United  Kingdom  "on  a  blaze." 

In  the  Colonial  times,  the  Colonists  almost  exclu- 
sively traveled  by  horse.  In  the  Revolutionary  War 
all  the  officers,  and  the  cavalry  of  course,  were 
mounted.  Washington  traversed  Virginia,  Ohio,  and 
Pennsylvania  on  horseback.  Circuit  judges,  barris- 
ters, litigants,  and  doctors  rode  their  routes  on  horse- 
back. Tradition  affirms  that  the  Great  Commoner, 
Henry  Clay,  and  President  Andrew  Jackson,  rode  back 
and  forth,  to  and  from  Washington,  on  horseback.  In 
Oregon,  at  my  quarterly-meetings,  nearly  all  the  wo- 
men, as  well  as  the  men,  who  attended  the  meeting 
from  a  distance,  came  on  horseback,  some  of  them 
with  a  child  in  arms  and  one  or  two  children  behind. 
They  were  expert  riders.  I  have  seen  mothers  come 
riding  in  a  lope  or  canter,  with  a  babe  in  arms  and  one 
or  two  children  behind.  All  the  early  Methodist 
preachers  traveled  on  horseback.  This  habit  pre- 
vailed, as  late  as  1830,  all  through  the  Connection. 
Asbury,  Whatcoat,  McKendree,  George,  and  Roberts, 
the  first  five  American  Methodist  bishops,  made  their 
extended  continental  tours  by  horse.  Nathan  Bangs 
and  John  Dempster  traversed  the  forests  and  swamps 
of  Lower  Canada  in  like  manner.  For  the  pioneer 
preachers  and  people  in  her  extended  prairies  and 
forests  this  was  almost  their  only  mode  of  travel. 

When,  some  sixty  or  seventy  years  ago,  horse- 
riding  in  New  York  State  gave  place  to  buggy-riding, 
an  amusing  incident  occurred.  The  Conference  met 
in  Wilkesbarre,  which  was  at  the  southern  extreme 
of  the  Conference.  For  the  last  twenty  miles  of  the 
distance  all  the  roads  converged  into  one.  The  bug- 
gies were  placed  upon  elliptic  springs.  They  had  as 
great  popularity  as  our  modern  bikes.  As  the  Con- 
ference day  approached,  the  ministers  came  along  this 


THE   GOSPEL    ON  HORSEBACK.  483 

common  highway* in  their  buggies.  There  seemed  no 
end  of  the  long  procession.  A  German  and  his  son 
were  working  in  a  field  along  the  pike.  The  father 
threw  down  his  hoe,  and  cried  out,  "Vel,  den,  Hance, 
py  sure,  hell  is  proke  loose."  But  this  mode  of  travel 
had  for  the  itinerants  its  special  advantages  and  com- 
pensations. While  thus  riding,  they  read  their  Bibles 
and  studied  their  sermons.  They  had  much  time  for 
thought  and  prayer.  They  were  men  of  much  prayer 
and  deep  thought.  In  this  way  they  mingled  freely 
with  the  common  people.  They  were,  therefore,  all 
the  more  esteemed,  and  accounted  as  of  the  common 
people.  This  gave  them  large  influence  and  follow- 
ing. None  of  the  people  escaped  their  visits.  They 
found  all  the  settlers.  A  man  and  his  family  emigrated 
from  Northern  Georgia  into  Western  Alabama.  Be- 
fore he  left  Georgia  the  Methodist  itinerant  had  se- 
cured the  conversion  of  the  man's  wife  and  children. 
So  he  emigrated  to  get  beyond  their  reach.  He  had 
selected  his  new  home  and  gone  upon  it;  but  on  the 
very  day  of  his  arrival,  and  before  his  household  goods 
were  unloaded,  the  itinerant  rode  up  and  sought  their 
acquaintance.  The  pioneer  gave  it  up.  It  was  no 
use,  he  said,  to  try  to  get  away  from  these  ubiquitous 
circuit-riders. 

Then,  moreover,  travel  on  horseback  had  still  other 
adaptations  and  compensations.  Life  in  God's  open 
air  and  sunshine  and  exercise  gave  the  itinerants  stal- 
wart physiques  and  robust,  vigorous,  bounding 
health:  large  capacity  for  enduring  the  exposures, 
perils,  and  fatigues  of  their  laborious  callings.  They 
had  large  lung  capacity,  and  loud,  strong  voices  for 
preaching.  In  their  long  rides  they  sometimes  en- 
countered men  of  keen  intellect  and  of  marked  skill  in 
debate.  I  recall  and  rehearse  two  notable  examples: 
one  of  them  of  intellectual  grapple,  the  other  of  phys- 


484     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT  WORK. 

ical  contention.  Jacob  Gruber  entered  the  traveling 
connection  in  1800,  in  the  Philadelphia  Conference. 
He  was  eccentric  in  manner  and  style,  fearless  in 
speech,  and  a  man  of  unusual  capacity  for  irony,  sar- 
casm, and  ridicule.  In  these  lines  he  very  rarely  met 
his  superior.  Two  mounted  lawyers  overtook  him, 
and  conversed  with  him  for  several  miles.  One  of 
them  rode  on  his  right  hand,  and  the  other  on  his  left. 
To  test  his  scholarship,  they  addressed  him  in  Latin. 
He  answered  them  in  German.  They  probably  knew 
as  little  of  his  German,  as  he  did  of  their  Latin.  They 
asked  him  whether  he  did  not  sometimes  make  mis- 
takes in  reading  and  speaking.  He  admitted  that  that 
was  quite  probable.  They  said,  "When  you  make  mis- 
takes, do  you  always  stop  to  correct  them?"  He  re- 
plied: "Not  always.  When  the  mistake  is  trivial,  I 
would  hardly  deem  it  necessary  to  stop  and  correct  it. 
For  example,  if  I  were  reading  the  passage,  'Woe 
unto  you,  scribes,  Pharisees,  lawyers,'  and  if,  by  mis- 
take, I  should  read  it,  'Woe  unto  you,  scribes,  Phari- 
sees, liars,'  I  would  hardly  deem  it  necessary  to  stop 
and  correct  that."  They  said,  "Mr.  Gruber,  we 
scarcely  know  where  to  place  you;  i.  e.,  as  to  whether 
you  are  a  fool  or  a  knave."  "Just  now,"  said  he,  "I 
am  probably  between  the  two." 

They  were  as  badly  "left"  as  Mr.  Wesley  is  re- 
ported as  having  left  a  bishop  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land in  London.  Wesley  and  two  of  his  ministers 
happened  to  meet  on  the  pavement  the  bishop  and  two 
of  his  curates.  The  bishop  held  the  sidewalk,  remark- 
ing audibly,  "I  do  n't  give  up  my  place  on  the  pave- 
ment for  a  fool."  "But  I  do,"  said  Mr.  Wesley,  who 
bowed  to  the  bishop,  and  stepped  off  the  curb.  If 
that  event  really  occurred,  Mr.  Wesley  answered  a  fool 
according  to  his  folly. 


THE    GOSPEL    ON  HORSEBACK.  485 

The  next  example  was  of  physical  prowess.  Rev. 
Joseph  S.  Collins,  a  local  preacher,  father  of  the  cele- 
brated John  A.  Collins,  of  the  Baltimore  Conference, 
was  a  man  of  gigantic  strength.  Collins's  encounter 
was  quite  equal,  in  its  way,  to  that  of  Gruber.  If 
Collins  had  not,  like  Paul,  "fought  with  beasts  at 
Ephesus,"  he  had  had  serious  grapple  with  contentious 
toughs,  who  required  severe  handling.  A  well-mounted 
stranger  overtook  Mr.  Collins  as  he  was  on  his  way 
to  a  certain  camp-meeting,  which  he  was  to  conduct. 
After  exchanging  pleasant  greetings,  the  stranger 
asked  him  if  he  could  direct  him  to  a  certain  camp- 
meeting  in  that  vicinity,  and  also  whether  he  could 
inform  him  whether  Mr.  Joseph  Collins  would  prob- 
ably be  present.  Mr.  Collins  promised  to  show  him 
the  way,  and  inquired  why  he  had  asked  whether  Mr. 
Collins  would  attend.  He  said  Mr.  Collins  had  put  the 
toughs  living  in  that  vicinity  under  cover.  Mr.  Col- 
lins asked  the  stranger  whether  Mr.  Collins  had  ever 
done  him  any  harm.  He  answered,  "No;"  but  that  he 
had  come  forty  miles  to  give  Mr.  Collins  a  licking, 
and  put  the  toughs  in  heart.  Mr.  Collins  said,  "If  I 
were  you,  and  Collins  had  never  done  you  any  harm, 
I  would  let  him  alone."  They  rode  on  together  several 
miles.  As  they  drew  near  the  camp-ground,  Mr.  Col- 
lins inquired  of  him  whether  he  was  still  of  the  same 
mind  as  when  they  had  first  met.  The  stranger  said 
he  was.  Mr.  Collins  dismounted  and  hitched  his  horse, 
and  invited  the  stranger  to  alight,  remarking:  "My 
name  is  Collins.  I  am  the  man  you  want  to  lick.  We 
are  near  the  camp-ground,  and  we  may  as  well  have 
the  trial  of  strength  here,  and  now."  When  the  man 
had  alighted  and  hitched  his  horse,  Mr.  Collins  seized 
him  by  the  collar  and  the  slack  of  his  trousers,  and 
flung  him  over  the  fence.    The  stranger,  picking  him- 


486     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

self  up  and  rubbing  the  part  on  which  he  had  fallen, 
is  reported  to  have  said,  "Mr.  Collins,  if  you  will  kindly 
hand  my  horse  over,  we  will  call  it  quits." 

Mr.  Gilruth,  the  Hercules  of  the  Ohio  Conference, 
is  said  to  have  seized  an  antagonist  around  the  waist, 
and  lifted  him  off  the  ground;  then  raising  the  bottom 
rail  of  the  fence  with  one  of  his  hands,  he  pushed  the 
man's  head  under  and  dropped  the  rails  over  his  neck, 
and  left  him  thus  in  limbo,  while  Gilruth  began  to  ride 
off  with  the  honors.  The  man  cried  after  him  for 
mercy,  and  was  released.  He  was  afterwards  con- 
verted under  Mr.  Gilruth's  preaching.  Many  of  the 
old-time  veterans  could  tell  of  encounters  with  camp- 
meeting  disturbers. 

We  are  celebrating  their  entrance  into  Ohio  a  hun- 
dred years  ago,  led  by  the  intrepid  John  Kobler  and 
Henry  Smith.  Ninety-one  years  ago  the  first  Meth- 
odist Annual  Conference  was  held  in  Chillicothe,  on 
the  Scioto.  At  that  historic  session  sixty-six  Meth- 
odist itinerants  were  present.  Bishop  Asbury  pre- 
sided. All  the  preachers  who  attended  that  Confer- 
ence came  on  horseback.  Some  of  them  had  ridden 
by  horse  a  thousand  miles  to  attend.  Five  presiding 
elders  were  present.  They  were  the  seniors  of  the 
body.  William  McKendree  had  entered  the  traveling 
connection  nineteen  years  before;  William  Burke,  fif- 
teen; Thomas  Wilkerson,  fourteen;  John  Sale,  thir- 
teen; and  Learner  Blackman,  seven.  Their  districts 
covered  four  States,  Ohio,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and 
Mississippi.  Nearly  all  the  others  were  recent  recruits. 
Thirteen  of  them  were  received  in  1805.  These  in- 
cluded the  eccentric  and  renowned  Peter  Cartwright, 
one  of  the  great  men  of  the  century;  James  Axley,  the 
intrepid  opposer  and  denouncer  of  slavery  and  the 
liquor-traffic;  Jacob  and  David  Young,  long  the  hon- 
ored pillars  of  the  old  Ohio  Conference;  Jesse  Walker, 


THE   GOSPEL    ON  HORSEBACK.  487 

who  later  was  the  chivalrous  missionary  of  St.  Louis; 
John  Collins,  of  precious  memory;  Ralph  Lotspeich, 
the  weeping  Jeremiah  of  those  early  prophets  of  the 
Western  Conference;  and  the  saintly  Samuel  Parker. 
Eleven  had  joined  the  Conference  in  1806,  and  eleven 
men  in  1807. 

Not  alone  in  the  West,  but  all  over  the  country, 
some  of  the  greatest  men  in  American  Methodism 
were  trained  and  developed  among  these  early  circuit- 
riders.  What  a  mighty,  illustrious  array!  Freeborn 
Garrettson,  who  itinerated  on  horseback  from  Halifax 
to  Virginia;  Jesse  Lee,  the  first  historian  of  his  Church 
and  his  times;  William  Beauchamp,  the  unequaled 
theologian;  John  Dickins,  the  father  of  our  publish- 
ing-houses; Ezekiel  Cooper,  his  eminent  successor; 
George  Pickering;  John  P.  Durbin,  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  of  our  educators,  an  eloquent  orator,  and 
for  many  years  the  great  organizer  of  the  Missionary 
Society  of  our  Church ;  John  Emory,  one  of  our  early 
bishops;  Henry  B.  Bascom,  long  a  chaplain  of  the 
United  States  Senate,  and  later  a  bishop  of  the  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church,  South;  William  Nast,  a  nona- 
genarian, one  of  the  earliest  of  our  German  annex; 
L.  L.  Hamline,  John  Strange,  Joshua  Soule,  Elijah 
Hedding,  W.  B.  Christie,  Edward  R.  Ames,  Matthew 
Simpson,  Arthur  and  Charles  Elliott;  George  W. 
Walker,  physically,  mentally,  and  morally  one  of  the 
grandest  of  men;  Russel  Bigelow,  Jason  and  Daniel 
Lee,  and  their  early  associates,  who  planted  our  ban- 
ners in  far-off  Oregon;  and  so  many  more  whom  time 
would  fail  me  to  mention.  They  were  God's  noble- 
men. Men  of  brain  and  brawn,  stalwart,  sturdy,  God- 
honoring,  and   God-honored. 

This  potential  equestrian  brigade  achieved  at  least 
three  mighty  results.  They  impressed  thejr  strong, 
unique  personality  upon  their  age,  their  century,  and 


488     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS  OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

their  country.  They  formed  the  effectual  breakwater 
against  the  reaction  of  the  American  mind  from  the 
horrible  Augustine  theology,  which  threatened  to  land 
the  masses  of  our  people,  first  in  the  half-way  house 
of  Unitarianism,  and  then  into  the  utter  and  blank 
infidelity  of  Volney,  Voltaire,  and  Rousseau.  They 
arrested  this  trend  by  turning  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
people  into  the  more  thinkable  and  evangelical  doc- 
trines of  Arminianism.  They  led  the  van  of  our  ad- 
vancing civilization  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Missis- 
sippi. They  planted  and  promoted  our  cause  in  the 
most  distant  and  inaccessible  parts  of  our  great  Re- 
public. They  induced  the  inclusion  of  Oregon  and 
Washington  and  Idaho  and  Montana  into  the  Na- 
tional domain.  The  pulsations  of  American  Meth- 
odism throb  with  the  impulses  of  their  tremendous 
and  concentrated  genius  and  energy.  They  climbed 
the  eastern  foothills  of  the  Rockies,  scaled  the  Sierras, 
and  planted  our  system  and  our  agencies  amid  the 
golden  placers  of  the  Sacramento  and  along  the  shores 
of  our  mighty  Northwest. 

In  closing  this  narrative  of  sixty-one  years  of 
itinerant  life,  I  take  occasion  to  make  a  few  infer- 
ential statements.  The  life  I  have  lived  has  been 
a  very  happy  one.  I  had  my  choice  in  the  begin- 
ning to  be  what  my  father  intended  and  hoped  I 
would  become,  a  doctor  of  medicine  or  a  minister. 
The  "necessity"  which  God  put  upon  me  when  he 
called  me  to  the  work  of  the  ministry  hardly  left 
me  to  an  option,  or  left  an  option  to  me.  I  felt 
the  inevitable  "woe  is  me,  if  I  preach  not  the  gos- 
pel." I  yielded  to  that,  and  God  has  given  me 
abundant  seals  to  my  ministry.  I  trust  I  may  have 
many  stars  in  my  crown;  but  whether  or  not,  I 


CLOSING  REMARKS.  489 

have  most  certainly  had  a  very  successful  life. 
"The  hundred-fold  in  this  world"  has  been  my 
guerdon.  I  am  firmly  presuaded  that  the  life  ever- 
lasting awaits  me.  Reviewing  all  that  I  now  know, 
if  I  had  my  life  before  me  at  the  present  to  begin, 
I  would  most  certainly  choose  the  kind  of  a  life 
I  have  had. 

It  is  my  firm  conviction  that  many  young  men 
whom  God  calls  into  his  ministry,  who  refuse  to 
yield  to  God's  call,  make  an  awful  mistake,  and,  in 
very  many  instances,  the  mistake  has  cost  them,  O 
so  dearly!  Their  religious  experience  has  been 
blighted,  and  not  unfrequently  their  temporal  pros- 
perity has  either  failed  to  come,  or,  if  it  came,  it  has 
been  delusive  and  disappointing.  "Seek  first  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness,  and  all 
these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you,"  is  just  as 
true  now  as  it  was  when  the  Divine  One  an- 
nounced it. 

The  success  of  Methodism — and  it  has  been 
great,  indeed — has  been  in  very  large  degree,  be- 
cause the  Methodist  ministers  have  firmly  known, 
and  held  by  conviction  and  experience,  the  blessed 
reality  of  the  gospel  they  have  preached.  Instead 
of  going  about  to  see  if  they  can  not  find  some 
higher  criticism,  they  have  found  with  delight  how 
abundantly  the  Word  of  God  has  found  corrobo- 
ration in  their  experience.  And  what  has  been  true 
of  the  ministers  who  have  preached  a  salvation 
which  they  have  consciously  found  true  in  their 
own  hearts,  has  been  equally  true  of  the  laity,  rank 
and  file.     The  testimony  of  the  lay  members,  men 


490     SIXTY-ONE    YEARS   OF  ITINERANT   WORK. 

and  women,  has  been  re-enforcing  to  the  ministry 
of  Methodism.  It  would  be  a  sad  mistake  for  the 
ministers  to  put  forth  neat  and  artistic  moral  essays 
for  pungent,  earnest  gospel  preaching;  and,  if  pos- 
sible, a  greater  mistake  for  the  laymen  and  lay- 
women  of  Methodism  to  switch  off  and  turn  aside 
from  the  experience  and  the  practice  of  the  fathers, 
both  in  the  pulpit  and  the  pew.  "Forsake  not  the 
old  landmarks.  Rather  inquire  for  the  old  paths, 
and  walk  therein." 

In  noting  the  changes  which  have  come  during 
my  long  service  in  the  itinerancy,  I  must  name  two 
things.  Lay  delegation  is  one  of  them.  It  has 
already  done  much  in  promoting  our  efficiency  as 
a  Church,  and  it  will  yield  yet  more  fruit  in  the  time 
to  come,  and  as  the  system  shall  be  more  fully  com- 
pleted to  make  the  lay  and  ministerial  numerically 
equal.  The  other  noticeable  change  is  the  won- 
derful fact  that  the  Christian  women  of  the  world 
have  come  to  the  front  as  a  result  of  the  crusade 
of  the  women  against  the  saloon.  They  are  mak- 
ing themselves  a  great  power  for  God  in  humani- 
tarian and  Christian  lines,  and  in  pushing  forward 
the  great  missionary  work  in  home  and  foreign 
fields. 

While  I  have  a  large  measure  of  catholicity, 
and  can  say  and  mean  every  word  of  it,  "Grace  be 
to  all  them  that  love  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sin- 
cerity and  truth,"  I  also  have  the  most  clear  con- 
viction that  Methodism  is  a  chosen  plan  of  God  to 
uplift  and  to  save  men;  and  I  advise  all  young 
Methodist    preachers    to    "abide    in    the    calling 


FINAL   REMARK.  49  j 

wherein  they  have  been  called,"  and  not  seek  to 
mend  Methodism  and  improve  upon  it ;  but  to  work 
it  for  all  there  is  in  it.  It  needs  only  an  earnest 
ministry  full  of  faith  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  a 
consecrated,  devoted  laity  full  of  pentecostal  fire 
and  power,  to  make  it  even  more  grandly  successful 
and  soul-saving  than  it  has  ever  been.  To  your 
tents,  O  Israel ! 

A  final  remark  is  this :  I  address  it  to  the  young 
men  and  women  of  Methodism — Have  a  cheerful 
religion.  Do  n't  allow  yourselves  to  become 
gloomy,  discouraged,  depressed.  "Be  strong  in 
the  Lord."  Have  for  your  strength  "the  joy  of  the 
Lord,"  and  you  will  be  invincible;  nay,  more,  you 
will  be  victorious,  triumphantly,  immeasurably 
conquerors,  and  more  than  conquerors,  over  all 
enemies,  obstacles,  and  difficulties. 


DUE  DATE 

Printed 
in  USA 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 


0045460620 


OCT  2  7  1953 


938.6 


P316 


«$* 


